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The Madrasa of Shah Husayn, Isfahan 



FROM MOSCOW TO 
THE PERSIAN GULF 

BEING THE JOURNAL OF A 
DISENCHANTED TRAVELLER 
IN TURKESTAN AND PERSIA 



BY 



BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE 



HE THAT INCREASETH KNOWLEDGE INCREASETH SORROW 



WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Ubc 1kntcF?erbocI;er press 

1915 



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Copyright, 1913 

BY 

BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE 



Ube Iknicfiqfpbcftcr ipices, mew l^orft 

M -1 *9I6 

'CI.A420272 



TO 
MY MOTHER 



" The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with 
flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before 
them." 



" It was the unstinted, and instructed, and ex- 
perienced hospitality of the English . . . that 
made my visit profitable and enjoyable." 

Collier : The West in the East. 



FOREWORD 

All the books I have ever read about Persia, 
have been more or less rose-coloured; encourag- 
ing persons who — like myself — dreamed of how 
they might one day visit the land of Iran, hallowed 
by history and by memories of the lovely art it 
produced in epochs that shall never return. When 
at last I travelled in Persia, I found it disappoint- 
ing; nevertheless my journey was so instructive, 
so diversified by amusing incidents, and offered 
so much that was curious or picturesque, I would 
not willingly have foregone it. I have therefore 
thought that pages whose one aim is sedulously 
to describe the country as it really is, might 
have a value of their own — however slight — not 
possessed even by masterpieces of rhythm and 
romance such as Loti's Vers Ispahan: while 
stating frankly all that was disagreeable, I have, 
however, endeavoured to bring out the beauty of 
many places in Persia, and avoid in my narrative 
the monotony which so frequently characterized 
the scenery. 

It would be a subject for regret, should anything 
I have written convey the idea that I consider my 
unfavourable opinion of Persia and her people 
definitive even for myself; I have merely noted a 



viii Foreword 

traveller's passing impressions as accurately as 
possible, not pretending to judge a historic race 
by the observation of a single visit. 

I leave the book in the shape of a journal, 
believing it to be both a form that has in English 
greater novelty than that of more ambitious 
works, and also one permitting a more personal 
expression. 

B. B. M. 



New York, 
May, igis. 





CONTENTS 




I.- 


—Moscow TO ASKABAD . 


PAGE 
I 


II.- 


— ASKABAD TO MaSHHAD 


• 71 


III.- 


— MaSHHAD TO TlHRAN . 


. 119 


IV.- 


— TiHRAN TO Isfahan 


. 225 


V.- 


—Isfahan to ShIraz 


. 291 


VI.- 


— Shiraz to Bushir 


. 381 




Index .... 


• 445 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Madrasa of Shah Husayn, Isfahan 

Frontispiece 

The Kremlin from the Kamoneny Bridge, 

MosKov . . . . . . . 6 

The Vasily Blasjenny Church from within 

the Kremlin . . . . . . 6 

Inside the Kremlin, Moskov. The Arch- 
angelsky Cathedral and the Ivan Veliky 
Tower 7 

St. Saviour's Church from the Kremlin, 
Moskov . . . . . . . 7 

A Typical Church, Moskov . , .10 

The Troitsco-Sergiyevskaya Lavra near 

Moskov ....... 10 

The Tomb of Timur Lang, vSamarqand . 11 

The Grave of Timur Lang, Samarqand . 11 

The Great Mosque. The Registan, Samar- 
qand . . . . . . .38 

The Mosque of Ulug Beg. The Registan, 
Samarqand -38 



xii Illustrations 

PAGE 

The Mosque of Bibi Khanum, Samarqand . 39 

Mosque of Shah Zinda, Samarqand . . 39 

A Mo§QUE AND A HaWZ, BUKHARA . . 48 

Natives in the Registan, Bukhara . .48 

The Registan, Bukhara .... 49 

A Group in the Registan, Bukhara . . 49 

A Prayer Portico and Hawz, Bukhara . 58 

A Hawz with View of the Kabjan Mosque, 

Bukhara ...... 58 

Minaret of the Kabjan Mosque, Bukhara . 59 

An Entrance to the Bazars, Bukhara . 59 

A Group of Bukhariats .... 78 

TURKSMEN AT A STATION NEAR ASKABAD . 78 

IBajgiran AT Sunrise ..... 79 
A Persian Chai Khana or Tea-House, Aska- 

BAD TO MaSSHAD ..... 79 

Imam Quli 88 

Late Afternoon on the Uplands above 

Imam QulI . . . . . . 88 

A Kabyle in Persia: Said in the Snow . 89 

"A Lodging for a Night" . . . 89 

The Gates of Masshad . . . .106 

The Shrine of Imam Rida, Masshad . , iQ^ 



Illustrations xiii 



PAGE 



The Citadel of Tus 107 

The First but not the Last Time we Stuck 

IN THE Mud ...... 107 

The Mosque of Qadamgah . . .130 

Qadamgah ....... 130 

The Dyers' Gate, NTshapur . . . 131 

Entrance to the Governor's House, NIsha- 

PUR ....... 131 

A Servant with the Governor of NTshapur's 

Falcon ....... 138 

The Governor of NTshapur's Head-Servant . 138 

Mosque of Imam Zada-i-Mahruq, NTshapur . 139 

The Grave of 'Umar Khayyam, NTshapur. 139 

View from the Grave of 'Umar Khayyam, 

NTshapur ...... 144 

Where 'Umar Khayyam is Buried. The 
Mosque of Imam Zada-i-Mahruq, NTsha- 
pur ....... 144 

A Road in Khurasan . . . .145 

What Happens to a Carriage when the 

Horses Try TO Drag it OUT of the Mud . 145 

A Persian Post Driver in Full Livery . 172 

Carrying the Mail in Khurasan . .172 

Exchanging a Broken Diligence for a 

Springless Fourgon, 'Abbas Abad . 173 



xiv Illustrations 

PAGE 

The Burial-Place of Bayazid, Saint and 
Mystic, Bustam . . . . .173 

The Burial-Place of BayazId from the 

Mosque Roof, Bustam . . . .188 

A Group of Notabilities, Bustam . . 188 

A Tower beside the Mosque, Bustam , 189 

Watching a Firangi at the Tomb of BayazId, 
Bustam . . , . . . . 189 

The Citadel of Bustam . , . .196 

Late Afternoon, from the Fortress, Dam- 
ghan . . . . . . . 196 

The Ribat of Anushirwan, . . . 197 

The Shah's Mosque, Samnan . . . 197 

Court of the Shah's Mosque, Samnan . 206 

Tomb of an Imam Zada, Samnan . . 206 

Minaret of the Assembly Mosque, Samnan. 207 

The Governor's Palace, Samnan . . 207 

The Ruins of Lasgird, the Fortress City 212 

My Third Vehicle, Masshad to Tihran . 212 

A Slight Interruption on a Khurasan Road 213 



Aghajan Fording a Stream 
A Street in Tihran . 
The Sardara Pass 



213 
228 
228 



Illustrations xv 

PAGE 

Travelling in a Fourgon without Springs 229 

The River and the Shrine of Fatima, Qum , 229 

Doorway of the Mosque, Qum . . 236 

The Shrine of Fatima, Qum . . . 236 



The Joys of Travel in Persia , 
In the Desert near Kashan 
Said Drawing Water in the Desert . 
The Town of Khafr .... 
The Dervishes of Khafr . 

HUSAYN AND "ThE FoOTMAN" 

Pul-i-Khaju, Isfahan .... 

The Maidan-i-Shah, Isfahan 

A Dervish in Bukhara 

The British Consulate, Isfahan 

Hindu Suwars of the British Consulate 
Isfahan . . . 

Courtyard of Shah Husayn's Madrasa 
Isfahan . . . . , . 

The Bridge of 'Aliverdi Khan, Isfahan 

The Maid an-i-Shah, with the Shah's Mosque 
Isfahan ...... 

The 'Ali Qafu, Isfahan 



237 
237 
262 
262 
263 
263 
266 
266 
267 
270 

270 

271 

271 

276 
276 



xvi Illustrations 



PAGE 



The Maidan-i-Shah, with the Entrance to 

THE Bazars, from the 'AlI Qapu, Isfahan . 277 

The Lutf Allah Mosque, Maidan-i-Shah, 
Isfahan ....... 277 

Group in the Court of the Chihil Situn, 
Isfahan ....... 280 

Wall-Painting in the 'AlT Qapu, Isfahan 281 



A Street in Isfahan, with View of the 
Shah's Mosque 

The Chihil Situn, Isfahan 

Mauruz Holiday Crowd outside the Mad 
RASA OF Shah Husayn, Isfahan 

Holiday Crowd Watching the Foreigners 
Madrasaof Shah Husayn, Isfahan 

Isfahan! in Holiday Garb at the Bridge of 
AlIverdi Khan, Isfahan. 

The Pul-i-Khaju, Isfahan . 

Old Pigeon Tower near Isfahan 

An Isfahan! Stork with a Feeling for Dec 
ORATiVE Effects 

My Lodgings at Mahyar . 

A Typical Persian: My Landlord at Mah 
yar . . . . . 

A City of the Apocalypse : Yazdikhast 

Early Morning at Yazdikhast from my 
Lodgings 



281 
284 

284 

285 

285 
290 
290 

291 
291 

318 
318 

319 



Illustrations xvii 

PAGE 

Natives of Yazdikhast with the Hlad 
tufangchi in the centre . . -319 

Shulgistan at Sunrise .... 324 

My Caravan Leaving Shulgistan . . 324 

The Way Haji Abbas, my Charwadar, Pre- 
ferred TO Ride ..... 325 

An Abandoned Garden: The Pavilion at 
Sarmak 325 

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae 350 

Goats and Children Guard the Tomb that 
Alexander of Macedon Entered with 
Reverence ...... 350 

Ruins of Pasargadae . . . -351 

The Ruins of Pasargadae . . . .351 

The Cliff-Hewn Tombs of the Ach^menian 
Kings, Nagsh-i-Rustam . . . 362 

The First Tomb, Nagsh-i-Rustam . . 362 

The Tomb of Darius Hystaspes, Nagsh-i- 
Rustam ....... 363 

Sasanian Sculptures, Nagsh-i-Rustam . 363 

The Archaeologist's Despair . . . 368 

Sasanian Sculptures near the End of the 

Cliff, Nagsh-i-Rustam .... 368 

Fording a Stream on the Way to Persepolis, 

Plain of Mervdasht .... 369 



xviii Illustrations 



PAGE 



ZOROASTRIAN FiRE AlTARS, NaGSH-I-RuSTAM . 369 

Sasanian Cliff Sculpture, Nagsh-i-Rajab 374 

Ruins of Persepolis ..... 374 

The Portico of Xerxes, Persepolis . . 375 

Palace of Darius, Persepolis . . . 375 

Palace of Xerxes, Persepolis . . . 380 

The Audience Hall of Xerxes and the Plain 

of Mervdasht in a Storm, Persepolis 380 

Effigy of the King, Persepolis . .381 

A Persian Plough, Plain of Mervdasht . 381 

Tang-i-Allahu Akbar .... 388 

A Namesake of Timur Lang: Timur TabrizI 388 

Graves in the Enclosure of Hafiz's Tomb, 

ShIraz ....... 389 

The Tomb of Hafiz, Shiraz . . . . 389 

The View from Hafiz's Tomb, Shiraz . 396 

Garden of the Forty Dervishes, ShIraz . 396 

Inside the Garden of the Seven Dervishes, 

Shiraz . . . . . . . 397 

Garden of the Seven Dervishes, on the Out- 
skirts of ShIraz ..... 397 

The Tomb of Sa'dI, outside ShIraz . . 402 

Windows of the Room where Sa'dI is Buried, 

Shiraz ....... 402 



Illustrations xix 



A Hospital in the Ruins of a King's Pleas- 
ure Dwelling ..... 403 

Palace of Karim Khan, Shiraz . . . 403 

Tomb of Karim Khan, in the Garden of his 

Palace, ShIraz ..... 406 

Ceiling of the Tomb of Karim Khan, Shiraz 406 

Tiles in Inner Court: Palace of Karim 

Khan, Shiraz ...... 407 

Where Telegraph Instruments have Taken 
the Place of a King's Wives. The Anda- 
RtJN OF Karim Khan, ShIraz . . . 407 

One Persian Garden not in Ruins: Bagh-i- 

Iram, Shiraz . . . . . . 410 

Forecourt, Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz . .410 



The Upper End of the Great Alley, Bagh-i 
Iram, Shiraz ..... 



411 
414 

415 
418 

418 



A Lateral Alley, Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 

Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz .... 

Mills outside Shiraz .... 

Chinar-i-Rahdar. .... 

One of our Escort, 'Ali Khan, Descending 
A KuTAL. ...... 419 

View from a Kutal Looking down on the 

Caravanserai of Mian Kutal . -419 

Women Travelling in Kajawas . . 422 



XX Illustrations 

FAGB 

Our Caravan and Escort Passing a Gendar- 
merie Post near Kazarun . . . 422 

The Kutal-i-Mihr ..... 423 

A Woman Churning on the Road to Kahna 
Takhti ....... 423 

The Peaks above the Dalaki River near 
the Kutal-i~Mihr . . . . . 430 

The DalakT River near the Kutal-i-Mihr 431 

A Sentinel on the Roof of a Gendarmerie 
Post Guarding a Bridge over the Dalaki 
River ....... 431 

The Dock at Bushir ..... 438 

A Pleasant Persian Punishment: Yaching . 439 

Map Ai end 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 

February 8'." 1914. 

THE train has just left Moscow station, and I 
am really started on my way to Turkestan 
and those cities of sonorous name, Samar- 
qand and Bukhara. Fortunately, I decided to 
leave on a day when the Compagnie Internationale 
des Wagons-Lits runs a car, in which it is possible 
to open the double windows of my sleeping- 
compartment. Only those who have travelled in 
Russia in winter can realise the extent of this 
boon; in Russian carriages belonging to the state, 
the double windows are hermetically closed and 
screwed in place, so that no ingenuity suffices to 
open them so much as a crack; to seal them still 
more effectually, a strip of heavy green felt is hung 
across the lower half, the only possible source of 
ventilation being a tiny vent in the roof. At 
either end of the car an immense stove, hidden in 
a closet and filled with logs, blazes day and night. 
The poor foreigner, not trained to Russian ways 
from infancy, lies in these breathless ovens with 

3 



4 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

reeling head, panting and perspiring like a stricken 
dog. Four days of this misery have been spared 
me by the enlightened windows of the sleeping- 
car company. My compartment, although small, 
is a comfortable place in which to pass a hundred 
hours crossing the plains of Asia. The car is 
composite, half first, and half second-class car- 
riages; and in the compartment next to me is 
Said, my Algerian valet, — as adroit a servant and 
as faithful a follower as any man could wish. I 
can see no difference between his compartment 
and mine, save the colours of the coverings, and 
the fact that by paying two supplements, I am 
able to secure for myself an entire compartment 
without fear of intrusion by uncouth or uncleanly 
travellers. 

Scarcely an hour has elapsed since we left the 
Kasan station; yet those features which the word 
Moscow will hereafter always evoke, have al- 
ready begun to cohere, offering the inner eye one 
of those sharply defined images always left by 
places that have deeply impressed us. It centres 
about the Kremlin, before which the Krasnaya — or 
Red — Square stretches like the proscenium of some 
vast pageant ; bounded at one end by that incred- 
ible Vasily Bias jenny Church, with its unique and 
almost monstrous agglomeration of neck-like 
towers and bulbous domes, — each different from 
the other, and all striped and patterned with every 
colour known to man; a building singularly ex- 
pressive of that fantastic world in which moved and 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 5 

reigned Ivan Grosny, known to us as the Terrible. 
Along the further side of the square, the great 
brick walls of the Kremlin stretch away endlessly, 
crenellated and rose-red ; terminating at the angles 
in round slender turrets with slim spires, and 
broken at intervals by huge rectangular gateways, 
surmounted by towering steeples brightly green 
and crowned with iron eagles. Over these walls 
peers an indistinguishable confusion of palaces, 
churches, cloisters, towers, and roofs, on which — 
as on a sea — a multitude of bulbiform small domes 
seems to float. Viewed from the bridge over the 
Moscow, or as it is called in Russian — like the 
city itself — the Moskva River, the Kremlin rises 
from the bastioned walls that sweep along the 
curving stream, in a steep slope covered with 
buildings fantastically formed. Within, it offers 
a view, not so much of a fortress as of a theocratic 
city; where the churches, which all but outnumber 
the palaces, crowd about little squares whence, 
over the rosy walls, a glimpse is caught of the 
gaudy domes of Ivon Grosny's church; or, far 
away down beside the bending river, of the noble 
outlines of St. Saviour's Church, built to com- 
memorate the great Napoleon's defeat. The 
quintessence of the Kremlin lies, however, in a 
recollection of untold quantities of jewel-work, 
richly wrought and delicate beyond words to 
praise, gathered together in dim, almost secret- 
seeming rooms; and in the impression of those 
strange cathedrals, subdivided into little spaces, 



6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

with a singular aspect of confusion, splendour, and 
rampant idolatry. 

Moscow also evokes long drives at evening- 
dark, over the snow in little sleighs, to distant 
fortified white monasteries; where in scantily 
lighted churches, filled with tiny lamps glimmering 
before idol-like ikons, priests and deacons, their 
incredible bass notes booming below the high 
voices of the boys, sing with curious ceremony 
nostalgic music, sometimes badly, sometimes very 
nobly. Above all, it presents to memory a pic- 
ture of that fantastic monastery, the Troitsko- 
Sergiyevskaya Lavra, which lies some sixty versts 
away across the flat and snow-draped country, 
guarding in its treasury its six hundred and fifty 
million roubles' worth of churchly jewels. Viewed 
from the hill-crest, on a day of brilliant sun flash- 
ing through the air and sparkling on the endless 
fields of snow ; it stretches before one, an immense 
mass of buildings, fortified like all old Russian 
monasteries, and enclosed in high white walls 
with crenellations, buttressed at each angle by an 
immense round tower, domed and painted in 
bright scarlet, with certain forms picked out by 
white lines. Over these vast outer walls, there 
rises a quite indescribable confusion of churches 
and convents, towers, roofs and domes, strange 
in form, and all painted in bright clear shades of 
red, blue, green, white, pink, and even lavender, 
while stars are patterned on those domes not 
covered with gilt. The colours are light but crude 




The Kremlin from the Kamoneny Bridge, Moskov 




The Vasily Blasjenny Church from within the Kremlin 

(.This church was built by Ivan the Terrible, who is said to have had the architect blinded oa 

its completion, in order that nothing like it should ever be built) 




Inside the Kremlin, Moskov 

The Archangelsky Cathedral and the Ivan Veliky Tower 

The broken bell beside the tower was made by order of the Empress Anne, and is the largest in the world 




St. Saviour's Church from the Kremlin, Moskov 
(This church was built to commemorate Napoleon's defeat) 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 7 

and contrasting; the effect is barbaric, yet in- 
tensely striking and picttiresque ; it is in real life one 
of those strangely splendid scenes with which the 
settings of the Russian ballet have made us familiar. 

Indeed, colour is the distinctive feature of all 
Russian architecture, of which nothing that 
describes only the masses can give an idea. Its 
forms are strange and half oriental, yet would not 
in themselves produce a deep impression; its 
materials are poor, being brick and rubble, but 
are plastered over and then painted with every 
conceivable shade of clear intense colour. The 
barbaric combination of colours is disconcerting, 
and not at all beautiful, according to our ses- 
thetics ; yet it is undeniably picturesque and effec- 
tive, with an acrid beauty of its own not unlike 
the impression made on classical ears by modem 
music. 

Among striking recollections of " Little Mother" 
Moscow, perhaps the most indelible is that of its 
numberless small domes, formed like tapering 
biilbs, and floating over the city wherever seen. 
The gilt with which they are covered, if new — as it 
frequently is — shines like sun-glow even under 
the sombre light of the grey and lifeless skies so 
characteristic of a Russian winter ; toward evening, 
in clear weather, they reflect the last rays, flashing 
and sparkling over the city. But even more 
fantastic and impressive than the domes they sur- 
mount, are the myriads of finial crosses ; these are 
usually not straight and solid, but wrought in 



8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

some sort of filigree, with fine points and lace-like 
ornaments; the whole fastened by spreading wires 
to the domes, from whose taper points they seem 
to burst like blossoming stalks from bulbs, — ■ 
tracing on the sombre sky a net-work not unlike 
the rigging of a ship . . . Moscovite memories such 
as these, cross my mind as the wide and steady cars 
are drawn through the winter dark, toward the 
plains of Turkestan with their legendary cities. 



February 9*" 
Nothing could be more unlike the bright colours 
and strange forms of Moscow than the dim and 
formless view outside the carriage-window this 
morning. The boundless sky is grey — no, not 
even grey; it is the mere negation of colour, a 
pallor seemingly the hue of vacuity; at times, near 
the horizon, it turns white like the snow and ap- 
pears alive ; but overhead there is only endless and 
immobile dreariness. The landscape is mono- 
tonous and desolate, lacking even the beauty of 
great expanses of snow ; endless undulations stretch 
away vaguely until earth and sky mingle in a 
mysterious nebulosity; dun-coloured stubble or 
ash-brown earth shows through the thin snow; 
here and there are stretches where weeds, withered 
and colourless, stand in rows or clumps, whilst at 
intervals a grey-white mass attracts attention 
when the snow has gathered deep enough to hide 
the earth. Sometimes trees grow singly or in 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 9 

groups, battered and leafless, showing a little 
mass of intricate boughs faintly outlined against 
the grey; or else evergreens form dark spots in 
the landscape, where small woods occasionally 
draw still darker larger lines. Habitations are 
visible but rarely and, even then, are nothing 
more than little cabins of wood, rough and un- 
painted, in colour a dirty hopeless grey-brown 
singularly in keeping with the universal dreariness. 
Once in a long while a sledge passes, laden with 
straw and drawn by a dull-coloured horse, with 
men in long black coats following close behind; 
but generally there is no living thing in sight. 
Near the stations there are more signs of life: 
sleighs — with horses harnessed to the shafts by 
high wooden yokes shaped like a horseshoe — 
appear, drawing logs slowly, or moving swiftly 
with only the owner seated on the floor — since 
they have no seats; a better sort of house is also 
to be seen, its two storeys painted and ornamented 
with scroll-work like Swiss chalets; invariably 
they stand inside an enclosure, where a horse is 
rolling lazily in the snow, or a few figures are 
hurrying across. 

The only diversity in the scenery occurs where 
there are miniature valleys, having slopes of some 
twenty feet up which small evergreens scramble, 
or else where there is a wood growing near enough 
to the railway for one to see either the serried 
rows of pines (deep olive-green darkening to 
black) or the white stems of small and slender 



10 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

birches surrounded by a delicate tracery of twigs, 
which lends a touch of grace to all this desolation. 
Sometimes I can descry a crow perched on one of 
those wooden palisades, laid in sections making 
acute angles one with the other — so as not to fall, 
and placed in exposed spots to prevent the snow 
from piling up in huge drifts. These Russian 
crows are smarter than their brothers who wheel 
across the skies of western Europe, and are alto- 
gether most picturesque and interesting fellows. 
Their breasts and backs are warm grey — almost dun 
— and slightly speckled, only the heads, wings, and 
a kind of bib-like patch under the bill, being shiny 
black. They are large, fearless, and everywhere 
quite at their ease. A smaller species of crow is 
also to be seen quite frequently — all black and 
more lively, but also more easily frightened, 
flitting off quickly in real bird-fashion, whereas 
the larger kind has but little of the unceasing 
volatility so usual in birds. 

At the stations, the poorest of the peasants 
have their legs wound in rags laced round with 
string, and are shod by a sort of a slipper woven 
with strips of vegetable fibre; these are really 
nothing more than a sole with a solid strip that 
covers the toes and stretches back far enough to 
prevent this primitive foot-gear from comiing off. 
They are dressed in long jackets made of skins 
with the furry side turned in, and wear big shaggy 
hats of fur. Those better off are dressed in long 
black coats with full skirts, like those worn in 







A Typical Church, Moskov 




The Troitsco-Sergiyevskaya Lavra near Moskov 
(Next to the monastery at Kiev, this is the oldest and most famous one in all Russia) 




The Tomb of Timur Lang, Samarqand 
(The minaret no longer exists) 




The Grave of Timur Lang, Samarqand 
(Timur's grave is marked by the black slab) 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD ii 

Moscow, and high boots of blackish felt with soles 
of the same material. One fellow — somewhat 
of a dandy — has a pair of these clumsy boots 
made of light grey felt, decorated with scarlet 
stitching, closely worked and finished off toward 
the tops and soles by rough scroll patterns. Only 
very occasionally a man is rich enough to own a 
pair of leather boots. At these small stations 
not a sound is to be heard, save perhaps the distant 
barking of a dog ; silence and sadness seem to weigh 
on the country, giving to every scene a curious 
air of resignedness. I do not know if this is a 
delusion, created by memories of what I have read 
in Russian literature; but country and people 
alike do certainly seem weighed down by a 
quietude that is stupefaction even more than 
resignation. 

Quite frequently the train passes through a 
little wood of birches. (Repetitions of the word 
"little" can scarcely be avoided, since everything 
in view is slight and stunted.) These birches — 
with their slim white stems, spotted with black 
and wrapped in a brownish haze, formed by masses 
of leafless branches too fine for the eye to see 
separately — do not hide the white snow lying on 
the earth between their trunks ; but here and there 
smaller trees stand out more boldly against the 
white — deciduous also, but with dried leaves still 
clinging to the boughs in patches of buff that wave 
and quiver against the greys and white of sky and 
earth. At the present moment we are running 



12 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

through a coppice of birches — for Russia — of 
considerable size; they are entirely coated with 
a glare of ice, so that the straight trunks, while 
visible from root to topmost twig, are yet sur- 
rounded by pearly masses of drooping branchlets 
that seem a foliage from fairyland. There being 
no sunlight, these jewelled trees are neither white 
nor glittering, only a tender grey tracing an in- 
tricate design across a veil of clouds. Leafless 
shrubs, growing between their trunks, are likewise 
tipped and powdered with ice; while here and 
there a sturdier tree, on whose duller bark the 
icy coating is scarcely visible, by its contrast en- 
hances the gracile beauty of the birch. Here 
the snow lies thickly in a covering of pure white; 
the whole scene is poetic and suggestive of old- 
time tales of faery, making a break in the monotony 

very welcome even though momentary 

It is now afternoon and we have just reached 
Sizran, where all the luggage has to be shifted 
from one train to another. A group of fur-capped 
porters is lifting an immense iron tube into one 
of the vans, singing a chanty all the while, quite 
in the manner of choruses on the stage. Mon- 
golian, almost Chinese types appear for the first 
time among the people at the station — queer flat 
faces that make me realise I am really approaching 
Asia. For a few seconds a glint of sun breaks 
through the clouds, lighting up the dreary scene 
with a red-gold glow. When we draw out of the 
station an hour and a half later, a full moon 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 13 

ascends the darkling sky behind long wisps of 
vapour that trail across its glistening disk. Be- 
fore long, however, clouds veil the moon and all 
the sky; when the train begins to skirt the Volga, 
Matuschka or Little Mother Volga, I can barely 
discern, through the fast gathering darkness, an 
indeterminate stretch of grey and snowy ice where 
a darker line vaguely marks the further shore. 
Nothing else is visible, yet the thought that this 
is the famous Volga is stirring — particularly when 
the tinkling echo of balalaikas playing that won- 
derful song of the Volga boatmen, resounds in 
the ear of memory. It cannot, however, prevent 
my suspecting that the voyage down the Volga, 
which from afar sounds so alluring, must be — at 
least as far as the landscape is concerned — very 
monotonous. . . . For a moment the clouds part 
and the argent moon appears coldly radiant in 
the centre of blue sky strewn with glittering stars ; 
then they draw together once more as we cross 
the Volga on a modern bridge. In this pallid light 
the river is — nevertheless — clearly visible, stretch- 
ing away grey- white, barred just here by the sombre 
shadows of the bridge, and further off marble- 
like, all streaked and spotted by drifting snow; 
finally it is lost to view in the ashen distance 
around a bend where a line of yellow lights curves 
away, glistening softly. A flock of large black 
birds is passing over the river close to the bridge, 

winging without a sound swiftly northward 

The first of what will probably be a series of 



14 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

misadventures due to my ignorance of Russian, 
has just occurred. On leaving Moscow there was 
a dining-car only mildly odorous, in which tahle- 
d'hote meals were served; so I had nothing to do 
but sit at table and wait to see what the strangely 
written menu really meant. It appears, however, 
that the dining-car is to be changed each day; 
this noon I found it separated from the sleeping- 
car by a line of fourth-class carriages, which to 
traverse is a veritable trial. In these cars, the 
passage leads through an apparently endless succes- 
sion of doors in the partitions dividing them into 
separate compartments, where men, women, and 
children of the poorest classes are piled together 
on a series of wooden shelves. The temperature 
is that of a fiery furnace, and all ventilation is 
rigorously excluded; the stench defies conception 
by even the liveliest imagination. I have learned 
that the least painful method of passing through, 
is to draw a long breath on the open platform 
separating the cars and then rush through, slam- 
ming doors and holding my breath till the further 
platform is reached. As the new dining-car is 
hermetically sealed, and admits third, if not fourth- 
class passengers, the nose can scarcely distinguish 
between it and a fourth-class carriage; the heat 
makes one's head reel, while the acrid odour seizes 
one by the throat and almost nauseates. To my 
horror, I discovered that I now had to order d la 
carte from a menu whose curious characters I 
could not even read. Pointing in desperation to 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 15 

two names, which I imagined to be probably a 
soup and a roast, I waited patiently for twenty 
minutes, breathing the mephitic atmosphere of 
this delectable carriage; then to my dismay, I 
was served with a noisome mess of fish coated 
with sickly sauce, that I did not dare touch. 
This, I thought, must be the dish I had expected 
to prove a soup; but a quarter of an hour's wait 
having produced nothing more, I was forced to 
indicate to the waiter a dish near the end of the 
list; this manoeuvre finally secured the half of an 
edible partridge. For the guileless and tongue- 
tied foreigner, dining on a Russian train is certainly 
hazardous ! 

February 10'.'' 
Early this morning we passed through Orenburg; 
now the desert steppes have begun — an undivided 
waste of snow and clouds. We are entering Cen- 
tral Asia, passing through the land of the Kirghiz 
Cossacks and the Tartar hordes. The idea that 
I am really crossing this ancient and half fabulous 
country is strange, but the familiar international 
wagon-lit in which I find myself, makes it seem a 
part of everyday European travel. Comfort in 
travelling is certainly very welcome, but there is 
no denying how completely it routs the unusual 
and the picturesque. . . . The steppe stretches 
away outside the window, an absolutely level 
expanse of vaporous snow, which a few hundred 
yards off melts into a sky without form, colour, 



1 6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

or motion. Wind moving across the surface, 
gives the snow a misty cloud-Hke appearance, so 
that looking out with eyes sHghtly closed, it is 
impossible to distinguish between earth and sky. 
All that is visible is a nebulous wall — a vertical 
something entirely without solidity, which it 
would be erroneous to call grey, since its pallor is 
no more than absence of all colour. On looking 
more closely, a faint line is just discernible where 
rising ground breaks through the snow; or at long 
intervals a solitary tree stands out, bent and black, 
the only precise form in all this vagueness. Now 
and then in the foreground, withered weeds and 
stubble pierce the snow, sometimes growing form- 
lessly, sometimes in rows and curves. Perhaps a 
line of trees may bar the white with a black line, 
half effaced as the snow rises, whirling away 
before the wind ; perhaps a single house comes into 
sight, half hidden in the drifts among a few bare 
trees. At rare intervals a slight eminence is cov- 
ered by a village, the roofs of whose one-storeyed 
wooden houses are concealed by snow, with only 
a narrow strip peeping out from the whiteness in 
which they are so deeply sunk that earth and 
houses can scarcely be distinguished. Scattered 
trees peer over what must be the ridge-poles, 
while the church rises conspicuously in the middle 
of the village, dominating everything in sight by 
its yellow belfry and green spire, standing beside 
the square mass of the church proper, with yellow 
walls and roof just perceptibly green, from which 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 17 

rise four little domes, and — in the centre — a fifth 
and larger one faintly blue. Sometimes at the 
end of the long band of dull colour which represents 
the village, a smaller church may be seen with a 
slender steeple but no domes. Once there were 
three dull brown wind-mills, their squat sails turn- 
ing industriously, outlined against the endless grey. 
A sleigh or a few figures may be seen moving 
toward or from the always distant station — when 
the village has one. Here where we have just 
stopped, nothing is visible but the station, painted 
a cheerful ochre with white trimmings; its red 
roof is half hidden by snow and fringed with 
icicles; in front of its tightly closed door, an at- 
tendant is standing with feet side by side and arms 
hanging motionless, except when he lifts a hand 
to rub his ears. The building, against which the 
snow has risen in wave-like drifts, stands in a 
fenced enclosure where a few trees, slender and 
bare, grow out of the snow. Only the moaning 
wind is audible, until a bell rings as we move 
slowly off, and a dun-coloured cow comes into 
sight around the corner of the station, standing 
absolutely still beside the house. For a short 
distance an unpainted wooden fence, quite yellow 
against the white, runs along beside the lines to 
break the drifts of snow; then once more we are 
lost in a vague expanse. Nothing is visible fifty 
yards from the window, in front of which mist 
and snow, moving before the wind, mingle in 
impenetrable veils. 



i8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

It is an appropriate setting in which to read 
Dostoyevsky's work of genius: The Idiot — a 
strange book, formless even for a Russian novel, 
and singularly disconcerting. It is impossible 
not to wonder whether people ever existed, so 
frenzied as those here described: men and women 
continually swept away by sensations they do 
not themselves altogether understand, conversing 
endlessly without quite knowing what they wish 
to say, like men drunk or carried away by passion; 
creatures aimlessly driven hither and yon by 
emotion, precisely as the snow and vapour whirl 
away in wreaths before the wind rushing across 
the steppes in the dim world outside my window. 

A wild night slowly gathers around the moving 
train; a gale rages, driving the snow before it 
across plains that are ghostly in the wan light 
which a hidden moon sheds through a pall of 
clouds. Looking out of the window, I feel as 
though I were at the bottom of the sea, or moving 
in a strange world of vapour. When I step out 
at a station, the wind howls around me, wringing 
and bending the inky boughs of a few naked trees, 
while it whirls the snow into long clouds of white, 
that rush wildly round and up as they are flung 
against the walls and then high into the sable 
immensity. 

February ii*> 
This morning there is a change of scenery so 
complete as to seem like a new setting on the stage. 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 19 

At first the earth — although nearly bare — still 
held a considerable amount of snow; but now at 
eleven o'clock it has almost disappeared, leaving 
only small patches sprinkled over a dirty-brown 
plain that stretches to the horizon absolutely 
level, except where at rare intervals a row of 
humpy hillocks breaks the monotony. The ground 
is covered with a straggling growth of sere yellow 
grass. From time to time, we pass encampments 
of nomad Kirghiz with flocks of sheep and stray 
camels quietly grazing nearby. Men dressed in 
dust-coloured garments move across the desert, 
mounted on camels. The sun is shining brightly, 
and the unclouded sky is of pale blue fading into 
grey as it sinks toward the horizon. A flock of 
birds is winging its way close to the ground — - 
a black mass of swiftly moving specks, which at 
times disintegrates, rising and falling like grain 
thrown into the air. It would be easy to imagine 
one's self crossing the high plateaus of Algeria, 
and no scene could, in its desert brightness, offer 
a greater contrast to the bleak snows of yesterday. 
Just now the dried grass grows quite thickly, 
with great stretches where feathery tufts still 
cling to the pale gold stalks. Here and there it 
has been cut and piled in small rectangular heaps, 
almost without colour. Nomad camps are quite 
numerous, of which nothing is visible but a low 
wall of sun-dried earth, surmounted by some sort 
of brushwood. The sun is almost hot; we are 
really in Asia, moving southward across the cradle 



20 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of humanity, toward the land of Timur and of 
Chingiz Khan. 

At the stations, plenty of Kirghiz are to be seen 
walking the platforms ; squat men with a yellowish 
skin and flat Mongolian faces. The most notice- 
able thing about them is their fur-lined caps with 
coverings for the ears and neck that can be turned 
up, but are now worn down, forming a kind of hood. 
At a door in the train, a Tartar woman from Kasan 
is standing; she has a square block of purple velvet 
embroidered in silver, perched on the front of her 
head under her shawl; but her high boots of soft 
yellow leather, decorated with red, blue, and green 
patches of the same material, are the most startling 
part of her costume 

At Perovsk which we left a short time ago, I 
nearly got into serious trouble because — not 
knowing that we had crossed the frontier of Tur- 
kestan — I took a photograph of Said standing 
beside the train, and another of some people 
grouped about the car door. The excitement was 
intense; station-masters, gendarmes, soldiers, and 
I know not what other officials, crowded around 
me, talking volubly but politely in Russian, of 
which I could understand only the word passport ; 
this I produced, but there would probably have 
been no end of trouble, had I not been the bearer 
of a letter from the Russian ambassador, request- 
ing all police and customs authorities to treat me 
with civility. This seemed to have a calmirg 
effect and I was permitted — to my great relief — 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 21 

to board the train just as it was moving off. 
However, at the next station a soldier— with his 
gun on his shoulder — marched through the cor- 
ridor of the sleeping-car, asking for the passport 
and name of the Frenchman travelling on the 
train; as I had spoken to the officials in French, 
which they did not understand but undoubtedly 
recognised, it was probably about me that further 
enquiries were desired ; as luck would have it, one 
of the carriages really was occupied by a French- 
man who produced all manners of papers, so I 
was left unmolested. 

This Frenchman, who speaks Russian and has 
already aided me several times in my struggle to 
order meals, is a curious fellow of a rough but 
interesting type. He lives in Moscow, engaged 
in some business for which he is now travelling 
to Tashkent. His wearing the ribbon of the Legion 
d'Honneur, is explained by the fact that he was a 
member of Charcot's expedition to the Pole. He 
has also lived five years in Mongolia, alone with 
the natives, prospecting for mines; he is therefore 
full of interesting yarns. Strangely enough, his 
travelling companion is a Spanish painter domi- 
ciled in Paris; in the sleeping-car there are also 
Armenian carpet merchants on the way to visit 
their factories at Merv, so we make a ludicrous 
jumble of nationalities 

Across the plain now without a trace of snow, 
and so dark a brown as almost to seem black, the 
crimson sun has just vanished from a metallic 



22 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

sky, leaving the shadows to sweep over the steppe 
and close in around the train; but a full and 
frosty moon soon drives them from the unclouded 
heaven, and gazes down on solemn groups of 
camels, standing motionless near every station. 

February i2*> 
We passed through Tashkent before dawn this 
morning, and now the scenery is somewhat differ- 
ent to that of yesterday. It is still a plain, but 
no longer the desert steppe; just an absolutely 
flat expanse, faintly tinged with the dirty green 
of short grass, traversed here and there by the 
brown line of a road or an irrigation canal — both 
of them signs we are no longer among the nomads; 
as a matter of fact, we have left the Kirghiz behind 
and are now among the sedentary Sarths. Quite 
frequently we pass their settlements; a mud wall 
enclosing mud houses roofed with thatch, while 
hardby groves of slender trees, rude and very 
boggy roads, horses, and cows, complete the picture. 
The first chain of mountains I have seen since 
entering Russia, comes into sight about ten o'clock; 
near the ground their bases fade into the bluish 
mist, until the summits seem to float above an 
earth with which they have no contact; the snow- 
capped ridges, however, stand out in opalesque 
tones of white delicately touched with mauve and 
pink, sharply outlined against mother-of-pearl 
clouds that begin to melt as they rise toward the 
zenith, fraying away in the blue. 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 23 

At the stations it is really hot in the sun. The 
type of men has changed once more, Sarths taking 
the place of Kirghiz in the idle curious groups 
gathered on the platforms to watch what is pro- 
bably the great event of each day, the passage of 
the train. They are taller and in every way larger 
built men than the Kirghiz, from whom they also 
differ in their darker brown complexions and the 
long black beards they often wear. They dress 
in a long garment, a cross between an overcoat 
and a dressing gown, made of some cotton stuff 
brilliantly striped or patterned, and obviously 
lined with a heavier material ; this descends to the 
knees and is held in place by a gaudy handker- 
chief twisted around the waist. Their visible 
clothing is completed by high boots of black 
leather, and either strips of dirty white twisted 
into turbans, or else skull-caps of bright colours 
and lively patterns. 

Beyond Tchernyayevo the line turns sharply 
westward toward the Caspian Sea, across a very 
flat desert, in colour a sickly brown changing to 
dull olive. At no great distance to the south, a 
noble range of mountains rises directly from the 
plain, its forms all clearly visible; first the lower 
spurs, brownish turning to blackish grey; then a 
little higher, streaks and patches of snow lying in 
shady folds, above which the great flanks lift up 
bare pointed peaks, all crinkled and ridged, pearly- 
coloured and flecked with soft shadows. . . . 
All day the scenery scarcely varies; when we 



24 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

finally reach Samarqand, night has come; for it 
is ten minutes past six by railway or Petersburg 
time, but really almost nine by local time. We 
have been a hundred hours crossing the scarcely 
inhabited wastes of Russian Asia. A long drive 
by moonlight, over a cobble road bordered by 
tall leafless plane-trees, brings me to the bright 
and tawdry street of a modern provincial town 
with its one-storeyed sorry hotel. At last I am 
really in Samarqand la hien gardee; but everything 
in sight is so like all the rest of the vulgar modern 
world, that — even with the moon's help — it is 
impossible to feel thrilled. 

February 13*^ 
The Samarqand of to-day is divided into two 
entirely distinct parts — the modern Russian town, 
and the old or more correctly the native city; for 
of ancient Samarqand, the seat of learning and 
the capital of Timur, no vestige is left other than 
the splendid fragments of a few great monuments. 
The Russian town is formed of one-storeyed houses, 
shops or dwellings, built along broad avenues 
lined with tall plane-trees — a tawdry town typical 
of the commercial life of to-day. The native city 
is merely a series of broad streets, where at present 
black mud, deep and viscous, makes any progress 
an acrobatic feat ; the houses are, with the excep- 
tion of a few Russian buildings, nothing more 
than wooden shanties. This renowned city of 
Samarqand, whose beginnings are lost in the 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 25 

mystery of unrecorded time, whose glory filled 
all Asia with its rumour, in the days when her 
walls resounded with the noise of building, as 
Timur and his issue bade their artisans rear those 
monuments which still adorn her downfall ; to-day 
offers to the curious wanderer come from afar, 
no aspects quaint or picturesque, no features of 
interest, except shattered mosques and mauso- 
leums rising out of the sordid native town, much 
as broken shafts of marble might emerge from a 
heap of refuse. To one who has seen an oriental 
city before, Samarqand offers nothing novel in 
the way of native life. The fine trees which fill 
the modern and surround both the new and the 
old town, must in spring and summer add some 
beauty to the place; but now they are bare and 
brown, almost shabby-looking with their scaled 
bark and stray leaves dangling stiff and dead; 
so, if anything, they contribute to the shoddy and 
neglected air of the city. This impression is cer- 
tainly heightened, perhaps partly created, by a 
sullen sky of leaden grey overhanging the entire 
scene without light or life. The one thing beau- 
tiful is the noble chain of snowy mountains, distant 
only some eighteen versts, of which a ghmpse is 
caught at every turn. I am told that they are 
mantled with snow, or at least that the summits 
are, even in summer-time; and the sight of these 
white-wreathed peaks, under an azure sky and 
over the green tops of swaying locust or poplar 
trees, must indeed be delightful. 



26 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

My first visit is to the tomb of that mighty- 
monarch, the conqueror Timur Lang, Tlmur the 
Lame, better known as Tamerlane, or even — 
since he has stirred the imagination of all ages — 
to lovers of the Elizabethans, as Tamburlaine. A 
first glimpse caught by the road through a tracery 
of bare brown boughs, is of a splendid dome still 
partly covered by tiles of a deep turquoise blue. 
After the fashion of all domes in Samarqand, it 
rises from, and projects beyond, a circular drum 
ornamented with coloured patterns and inscrip- 
tions, formed by glazed tiles set in the unglazed 
buff brick of which the major part of the tomb is 
built. This drum ends in, or — more correctly — 
is crowned by, a series of elaborate honeycomb 
vaultings in true Arabic style, forming corbels 
from which the dome springs; the diameter of its 
base being in consequence somewhat greater than 
that of the drum it overhangs. The cupola is 
not hemispherical, but pointed and much stilted 
— rather like an egg sliced off considerably below 
the middle; in this case it is ribbed in a way I 
can only describe as being like the fiutings on a 
cake, that is to say, the ribs or flutes leave no flat 
surface between them, each touching the other and 
terminating on its own corbel. The whole dome 
was once covered with tiles of a hue best called 
turquoise, but very dark and at the same time very 
vivid, that must have formed a striking mass of 
colour. The entrance is through a gateway, once 
part of a portal wall pierced by an immense arch- 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 27 

way, forming a flat niche with the actual door in 
its centre; wall and arch have fallen and disap- 
peared, nothing remaining to-day but a flat wall 
with its door-opening, and two now buttress-like 
shafts of masonry rising at either side of the wall. 
Within, there is a small and ruinous courtyard, 
where a few leafless cherry-trees grow in front of 
the mausoleum. This fagade was originally com- 
posed of a great portal with its arched opening, 
flanked on either side by lower wings; the entire 
archway with the wall it supported, and the whole 
second storey of the left wing, have vanished ; to- 
day what was once the rear wall of the portal 
arch, rises free some thirty feet behind the right 
wing of the fagade, looking like a small building 
stupidly placed almost in front of the mausoleum. 
The one remaining storey of the left wing also 
gives the impression of an unrelated building, so 
that only after some thought is it possible to dis- 
cover what the original front must really have 
been like. The fall of the portal wall has revealed 
the dome with its drum rising above the front of 
the tomb proper, which is but little wider than the 
drum itself; the effect being like that of some 
immense and glorified mushroom of the pointed 
species that never opens out. The entire build- 
ing is built with small, rather thin bricks, unglazed 
and in colour a warm buff; it is ornamented with 
patterns of endless variety and complexity — either 
glazed bands of mosaic tiling, or designs (and 
even Arabic inscriptions of large size) made by 



28 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

placing blue bricks in fixed positions among the 
yellow. The only colour employed in these deco- 
rations is blue, in shades varying from a deep 
sapphire, rich and glowing, up to a brilliant but 
fairly dark turquoise, really more green than blue. 
In the mosaics, white is used to form boundary 
lines, flowers, or even letters, which in the smaller 
inscriptions are written in flowing Arabic script, 
whilst the larger ones, made with separate bricks, 
are composed in the rectilinear block character 
called Kufic. 

The main entrance to the tomb-chamber is 
closed by a door of pierced wood, so the visitor 
must enter at the left by a dark corridor vaulted 
with a series of little domes borne by pendentives. 
The interior of the tomb is built on the plan in- 
variably found in all buildings at Samarqand ; one 
of noble simplicity, but in detail so varied as never 
to pall. The four walls enclose a square, each 
wall having in the centre an arched opening with 
a reveal of several feet, forming a niche filled with 
stalactite vaulting, that looks like nothing so 
much as a giant honeycomb built by some mons- 
trous species of bee; this vaulting starts from the 
rear wall and curves forward to within about two 
feet of the main wall surface, making roughly a 
half dome over a niche rectangular in plan. The 
square area of the entire chamber is covered by a 
dome; to say that it is carried on pendentives, 
would scarcely convey an idea of the curious con- 
struction; the circular drum rests on an octagon 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 29 

obtained by cutting off the corners of the square 
enclosed by the four walls, with a plane pierced 
by a vaulted niche ; the sort of corbel thus formed 
offers a triangular surface to carry the drum, but 
at the level of the string course consists of no more 
than two tiny triangles joining the wall. From 
below, the eye looks into a vaulted surface that 
transforms the square into an octagon, in outline 
scarcely different to the circle above; the whole 
system is highly ingenious and successful. . . . 
The walls of the tomb are covered and patterned, 
to about a man's height, with small octagons of 
marble, now almost aquamarine in colour. This 
marble surface is finished by two ornamented 
bands; the upper part of the walls is laid with 
stucco wrought into a net-work of complicated 
designs, in the old days painted with bright colours 
of which faint traces still remain. The dome shows 
a few remnants of what was once an elaborate 
wooden casing, probably of cedar. 

The greater part of the floor-space is railed off 
by a very low screen of pierced marble, forming an 
enclosure where the cenotaphs of Timur and his 
family stand, the actual graves being — as is usual 
in the Orient — situated in a subterranean vault. 
Timur's monument, made of two blocks of green- 
black nephrite marble, is placed near, but not 
actually in, the centre of the building; for Orien- 
tals frequently neglect, or even avoid, the central 
position we should hold essential to a prominent 
tomb. The largest and — except for its colour — • 



30 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the most conspicuous of the cenotaphs lies close 
to the main entrance, between two high poles of 
natural wood not unlike slender masts; fastened 
at right angles to the poles, are small wooden rods, 
from which depend, in one case the remnants of 
a banner, in the other a short bushy horse's tail, 
— an emblem in these parts used to mark the graves 
of honourable or holy persons. A similar pole 
and trophy stand in one of the great niches. Access 
to the crypt with the real tomb being gained by a 
flight of steps in the corner of the building, un- 
protected by railings, the sombre void seems 
newly revealed by the withdrawal of some mys- 
terious slab. As my turbaned guide goes down the 
steps, light in hand, and disappears around the 
corner, I am instantly reminded of The Arabian 
Nights, with their magic stairs, such as Aladdin 
descended into the jewelled treasure-cave. The 
vault-like crypt is only lighted by tapers placed 
in the centre on wooden standards, from which 
the wax drips steadily. It is impressive to find 
the tomb of this fourteenth century conqueror, the 
Asiatic Napoleon, still visited by many in our 
strange twentieth century; but my mood is some- 
what disturbed, when I am asked to deposit a few 
kopecks in the hollows scooped in the tomb-stone 
to receive offerings to pay for the tapers burning 
beside the grave; dignity seems quite as rare in 
far-off changeless Asia as in our modern Europe. 

But even so, this dim vault affords me a curious 
proof of the overwhelming power of imaginative 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 31 

genius. I have read not a little about Timur 
Lang, so the facts of his career are familiar to me ; 
I can readily recall the ferocious conqueror who 
passed through Damghan, "raving, impatient, 
desperate and mad," and left, as a sign of his hor- 
rible vengeance, four towers built with human 
heads cemented in mud, which were "so high that 
a man could scarcely throw a stone over them"; 
and were seen by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, passing 
through on an embassy almost a quarter of a 
century later; yet this historical image vanishes 
like mist, giving way to the glowing vision of 
Marlowe's high-speaking (yes, at times — ^if you 
will — bombastic) hero; that Tamburlane who, 
like leaping flame, incarnates the exuberant ardour 
of Elizabethan glory. Here in this gusty vault, 
standing beside Timur's grave in his birthplace 
Samarqand, the reality lies for me, not in the 
tomb and in history, but rather in the lover of 
"divine Zenocrate," from whose lips there fell 
some of the noblest accents English poetry has 
ever heard; through the semi-dark I catch the 
sounding syllables: — 

"What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then? 
If all the pens that ever poets held 
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, 
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, 
Their minds, and muses on admired themes : 
If all the heavenly quintessence they still 
From their immortal flowers of poesy, 
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 



32 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

The highest reaches of a human wit; 
If these had made one poem's period, 
And all combined in beauty's worthiness, 
Yet should there hover in their restless heads 
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least. 
Which into words no virtue can digest." 

Leaving dreams and the tomb of Timur Lang 
behind, I now take my way toward the native 
town on whose outskirts the mausoleum stands. 
The ancient city is approached, first through an 
open square lying between it and the Russian 
town, with fine vistas of the distant snow-peaks; 
then by a long rather wide street, where a deep 
black bog serves as roadway. This unattractive 
avenue is bordered by low wooden houses, usually 
one-storeyed, but sometimes completed by a second 
storey projecting like a balcony; these hovels are 
used as booths, where all the industries, filth, 
stench, and disease of an oriental town are gathered 
together. There are only two things in any way 
peculiar to Samarqand; the first is a species of 
unhappy quail, kept in tiny wicker cages shaped 
like bee-hives, to be used — I am told — like cocks 
in a bird fight; the second is the women. They 
are veiled, but not as in other parts of the Orient. 
The sheath — since there is no other name to de- 
scribe it — in which they are enveloped, does not 
hang down over the face pierced by eyelets, neither 
is it drawn across, leaving a hole through which 
one eye just peers; it wraps the head after the 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 33 

fashion of a European shawl, and is fastened under 
the chin, whilst the entire oval of the face is 
covered by a mask of stiff black, like a close-meshed 
wire netting. This visard is impenetrable to the 
gaze of passers-by, unless the women chance to 
pass in front of a very strong light; even then, no 
more than an outline is visible. The effect of this 
rounded black mask is startling, as it emerges 
from the mantle that wraps the women from the 
crown of the head to the hem of their gown. 
These shrouds are made of some cotton material, 
in either dark blue or blackish grey; and are 
decorated with two bands, starting from em- 
broidered squares placed where the edges of the 
garment are fastened together under the chin, then 
following up the hem, until they almost meet at 
the centre of the head, from which they fall free, 
gradually narrowing until they are held in place 
near the bottom of the mantle by two smaller 
squares of embroidery. 

The main street does not lead directly into the 
Registan, but passes behind the shabby row of 
wooden booths which forms one side of the square. 
The celebrated Registan, or market-place, is a 
large square space bordered on three sides by 
mosques that must, in their prime, have possessed 
such glory of colour and form as made of this 
market-place one of the splendours of the world. 
All three mosques are alike in general plan, but 
each varies in detail and has its own individuality. 
The main feature is an immense, nearly square 
3 



34 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

wall-screen, placed in the centre of the fagade, and 
pierced by a gigantic pointed arch, leaving no 
more of the wall surface than a comparatively 
narrow strip on either side, and a small expanse 
above; this archway, being closed at a depth of 
some twenty feet by a wall, forms an enormous 
fiat niche. The surface of the rear wall is occu- 
pied, up to the spring of the arch, by a composition 
formed by a large archway flanked by two smaller 
ones, surmounted by two others rising to the 
crown of the centre archway; these openings do 
not pierce the wall, but are in their turn walled up 
to form smaller niches, of which the middle one 
is deeper than those at the side ; these are cut by 
the real doorways — rectangular openings of moder- 
ate size. The great tympanum above this series 
of niches, is bare and broken only by a tiny open- 
ing that permits a fleck of sky to peer through with 
charming effect. The deep reveals, seen in rela- 
tion to the great depth of the main opening, are 
very striking and add to the sense of size; while 
the large grouped arches — being in relation to the 
opening of the immense niche in which they stand, 
very small — give such scale as makes the main 
arch appear gigantic. The conception is very noble 
and most imposing. The narrow strips of wall 
surface on each side of the great archway, are 
treated with vertical ornament carried clear to the 
top of the wall-screen — like vast pilasters flanking 
the portal — and interrupting the horizontal band 
which runs across just over the keystone. On 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 35 

either side of this great central mass, is a low, 
rather short wing, terminated by a lofty minaret 
— very slender and tapering toward the top, where 
a series of corbels finishes it with a kind of capital, 
formerly surmounted by an elaborate cage of 
pierced wood for the muezzin to call the name of 
Allah, ^ These low wings and slim towers enhance 
the majesty of the portal screen. 

These mosques, like the Tomb of Timur Lang 
and all the other buildings in Samarqand, were 
built with small buff bricks, entirely covered by 
a veneer of choicer materials in patterns of end- 
less variety; — either radiant tile-mosaics in every 
shade of blue, or else yellow bricks of finer quality 
with designs in enamelled brick and tile. This 
exquisite facing has in the course of centuries fallen 
away in places, exposing wide areas of tawny brick. 
What we see to-day is, therefore, only the crumb- 
ling wreck of vanished glories; even so it is very 
beautiful, for it is architecture with such noble 
simplicity of conception as needs no ornament. 
When intact, glittering with their exquisite con- 
trasts of yellow and varied blue, these mosques 
must have been splendid beyond anything we scq 
in our drab modern world. In the spring, sil- 
houetted against the pearled or opalescent tones 
of distant mountains, under a sky as brilliant as 
their own enamels, they must have resembled one 



' For an example of these wooden cages, see the photograph 
of the minaret at Samnan facing page 207. 



36 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of those magic pictures we imagine but never see 

with fleshly eyes 

On the outskirts of the native town, northward 
from the Registan, are the ruins of the Mosque of 
Bibi Khanum, built by Timur in honour of a pe- 
culiarly beloved wife, and finally shattered by can- 
non, when in 1866 the Russians took Samarqand. 
In the morning I could not enter because, being 
Friday, the Moslem Sarths were at prayer, seated 
cross-legged on the ground in regular rows — like 
chessmen. Now it is deserted ; a little door admits 
me into a neglected courtyard filled with desolate 
locust-trees, stripped bare and shivering under the 
solemn sombre sky. In the centre the famous desk 
built with huge slabs of stone to hold a gigantic 
copy of the Qur'an, still remains, and is — they 
tell me — still thought to confer fertility on sterile 
women who crawl beneath it. The main gate- 
way of the enclosure is in ruins, but standing. 
The mosque is built against the rear wall. Its 
mighty portal is not flanked by wings, as in the 
Registan, but is buttressed by two minarets ter- 
minating the wall after the fashion of engaged 
columns. The majestic mass of this portal, and 
the relation between its main arch and the smaller 
one within, give the facade a dignified simplicity 
that no church I have ever seen can surpass. The 
tympanum of the rear wall has fallen, revealing 
all that is left of the outer dome — a fissured quar- 
ter still glittering with tiles of deep turquoise blue. 
Inside, the same proud simplicity prevails; just 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 37 

four walls enclosing a square, each one with an 
arched sinkage in the centre offering a motive 
for decoration. These walls, with the help of 
corner corbels like those at Timur's Mausoleum, 
support a great cupola that calls to mind how : — 

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree: 
Where Alph the sacred river ran." 

Viewed from outside, the buff walls and the great 
drum which carries the shattered cupola — green- 
ish blue patterned with inscriptions in stately 
Kufic characters six feet high — form a most 
impressive wreck. 

Down the hillside below the Mosque of Bibi 
Khanum, lies the Shah Zinda group of mauso- 
leums. The entrance is at the bottom of a small 
but steep ravine, down which a flight of stone 
steps descends to a particularly soft black bog, 
doing duty as a road. A gateway, reproducing 
the main features of the mosque portals on a 
smaller scale, leads to a restricted level space with 
a portico for prayer to the left — a modern build- 
ing whose wooden roof is gaudily painted in greens, 
blues, reds, and gold, resting on grey mast-like pil- 
lars of wood. A paved and narrow path stretches 
up the steep hillside away to the distant sum- 
mit; first of all steps, then a sharp incline, and at 
the last a gentle slope. Bordering both sides, is a 
succession of mausoleums, built to honour either 
holy men, or relatives and descendants of Timur 



38 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Lang. They are small domed buildings of ex- 
quisite workmanship, more fully covered with 
tiles than the mosques, and also better preserved. 
The richness and complexity of their mosaic defies 
description by word, and would all but defy a 
rendering with lines. These lovely tombs look 
like shining enamels or carven jewels, deep sap- 
phire blue in general effect, but patterned with 
varying tones paling out to verdant turquoise. 
They are all crowned with variously shaped small 
domes, showing wide surfaces of buff above the 
encrusted walls; domes that group themselves in 
curious combinations as the pathway bends be- 
tween the walls and mounts the hill. On the 
level at the further end of the street above me, 
the brown boughs of a bare tree lean over the wall, 
swaying gently. How lovely they must be, when 
in spring they are wreathed with fine emerald 
leaves, flinging a diaper of shadow across the dull 
saffron walls! Even to-day the prospect is full 
of charm, looking down the hillside out across the 
picturesque intermixture of domes and wall- 
surfaces, with their delightful contrast between 
tawny bricks and shining tiles of bright enameled 
blue, — away to the range of snow-peaks coldly 

blue-white under a sky of leaden grey 

At the upper end of the narrow street the Mosque 
of Shah Zinda is entered between two delicately 
carved doors wrought with deep-cut foliage, to 
which are attached two metal handles so pierced 
as to look like brazen lace. Thence a little portal 




The Great Mosque 
The Registan, Samarqand 




The Mosque of Ulug Beg 
The Registan, Samarqand 




^■^ 



The Mosque of Bibi Khanum, Samarqand 




Mosque of Shah Zinda, Samarqand 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 39 

leads out on the barren heights now called Afrasi- 
yab, where the prehistoric town of Maracanda 
once lay. It is a blackened expanse, unkempt 
and filled with graves; very sordid but offering a 
splendid view across the city (where Bibi Khanum's 
Mosque towers near at hand) to those snow mount- 
ains which engirdle all that is left of Timur's 
Samarqand. The name itself is full of magic, 
but of romance the modern town can offer no 
trace ; these ruins of buff and blue lying below and 
before me, are — however — even in their dilapida- 
tion, so truly noble as well to merit a visit. It 
is quite probable that in a flood of springtide 
sun, under skies of radiant blue, amid newly 
green trees waving softly under the shadow 
of the shimmering hills of snow, Samarqand 
might even at present possess a loveliness I 
can scarcely divine on so dreary a winter day. 



February 14*? 
In Turkestan permission to take photographs 
is even more difficult to obtain, more involved in 
endless formality, than in Russia itself — which is 
saying not a little. Yesterday I spent the greater 
part of an afternoon driving about in pursuit of 
my permit. Samarqand's supply of generals is 
apparently without limit, since my search led me 
to five, all very courteous; the first declared him- 
self incompetent to grant my request, and referred 
me to a second ; he told me to address myself to a 



40 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

third, who proved to be ill, so his wife sent me to 
another; by this one I was directed in despair to 
a Tartar general, who finally gave me the neces- 
sary document. When this troublesome permit 
had at last been secured, it was far too late in the 
evening to use a camera; to-day snow is falling, 
so photography is all but out of the question. 
The path of the foolish foreigner in Turkestan is 
indeed hedged about with awesome regulations 
and menace. 

This morning the trees of the nearer hills are 
draped in white, but the mountain tops have 
vanished behind grey veils of mist. A few flakes 
of snow are still drifting idly through the sombre 
air. In the Registan, the view from the roof of 
Tillah Kari's Mosque is very striking; below me 
is the slimy square (with even to-day a few 
loungers) dominated by the two great mosques, 
with their minarets pointing skywards like fingers ; 
behind me are the shattered walls of Bibl Khanum's 
colossal mosque, emerging from the native hovels; 
feathery wreaths of snow lie on walls and ledges; 
from time to time a little flurry drifts listlessly 
down from the ominous sky. The mosques are 
really nothing more than open squares enclosed 
by arcades, with a lofty arch — giving on a room 
used for prayer — in the middle of each side; in 
the centre of this courtyard there is a very small 
edifice of brick, but no signs of water tanks — in 
other lands an indispensable part of mosques. 
The portal screen rears its vast expanse above the 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 41 

roofs, in the dominant manner of stage-walls in 
antique Roman theatres. 

When I reach the Tomb of Timur, snow is 
falling thickly and quite fast. The buff walls 
with their scaling tiles, rising toward the striking 
mass of drum and dome, patterned and still partly 
blue, are extremely picturesque when seen to-day 
through a vale of drifting snow. The courtyard 
has poetry amid all this motion of filmy white; 
the snow seems not so much a succession of falling 
flakes as a continuous weaving of white lines 
crossing one another steadily and softly. The 
fluttering of this white web has about it something 
magical, that lends an I know not what of pathos 
to all it enfolds. 

February 15^^ 
On leaving Samarqand this morning, there was 
a heavy fall of snow, which continued as we moved 
slowly through the desolate scenery of an unin- 
habited plain covered with white; now the snow 
has ceased, and the clouds have lifted enough to 
show white hills at the foot of still invisible mount- 
ains. Here in Turkestan, the ticket-collector is 
continually passing through the train, preceded 
by the guard and a uniformed soldier carrying a 
gun with a fixed bayonet; sometimes the soldier 
is a Turkoman, wearing the immense shaggy black 
cloak of his people, but with a cap instead of the 
usual fur bonnet — a concession, I suppose, to 
official uniform. This martial procession is quite 



42 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

awesome to the meek European, so frequently 
reminded that he travels in Turkestan only on 
siifferance and under surveillance ; officials holding 
telegrams appear at stations to enquire if one is 
the person whose passage is signalled in the 
despatch; soldiers on the train have heard that a 
foreigner of such and such a strangely perverted 
name is expected to travel through; so there is 
a general sense of being observed, which makes 
Russia with its passport formalities, seem an 
easy-going land of the free. 

At every station, somewhere on or near the 
platform, there is a rough table made of boards, 
painted yellow and laid loosely upon equally 
yellow posts driven in the ground. It forms a 
rough buffet behind which two to four women 
stand, each with a boiling samovar before her. 
The travellers rush up to have their own teapots 
filled with boiling water from the samovars. 
Sometimes the women come scurrying out of 
nearby houses with the bubbling urns in their 
hands, just as the train is about to leave the station ; 
then there is a great "to-do." Bread is also sold, 
and bottles of some milky liquid that must be a 
kind of koumiss; sometimes there are pointed 
melons with smooth rinds of a pale lemon colour, 
each one neatly done up in a harness of vegetable 
fibre, so it can be carried without slipping out of 
the hand. The meat of these melons is snowy 
white and deliciously flavored. 

In the second-class carriages are many Sarths, 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 43 

apparently more prosperous than those who ap- 
pear at stations. Two things about their clothes 
are conspicuous: the end of their turban, falling 
far enough down the left side to touch the shoiilder, 
— and the sleeves of their outer coat, which drop a 
foot or more below the hands when the arms hang 
straight, making the men look as though they had 
lost their forearms; sometimes they cross their 
hands within the sleeves, which then serve as 
muffs. These long sleeves must have been common 
in mediaeval Russia, since I have seen them both 
in old prints and in the costumes of a legendary 
opera. Some of the men wear a girdle over the 
outer cloak; others leave it free to hang loose, 
only girding up the inner garments. Nearly all 
have boots of supple leather, thrust into stout 
slippers that can be discarded on entering the 
houses. They all smoke a water-pipe, or narghile, 
quite unlike the Turkish ones commonly seen in 
the West. These have a lower part shaped like 
a jar and made of brass, out of which a stiff stem 
of metal or reed projects at an acute angle, — the 
flexible leather pipe of the hookah being apparently 
unknown in these parts. The upper stem, coal- 
basin, and pipe-bowl, are more or less like those 
in use elsewhere. In smoking they usually place 
a finger over a little vent in the pipe's brazen bowl, 
and then draw furiously. Here at the stations, 
a man with a lighted pipe stands on the plat- 
form, just as he would before a cafe in the street 
of a town ; passengers rush up in turn and give him 



44 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a quarter kopeck for a few puffs, usually with the 
vendor still holding the pipe. 

At Kagan I am obliged to take a little branch 
train, that has no first-class carriages. One of 
my fellow-travellers in the car where we are all 
piled, is a well-to-do merchant travelling from 
Khokand. He wears a long garment — rather 
like a frock-coat — made of European-looking 
cloth, under which there is a vest of the same 
material, with a high standing collar buttoned 
tightly round a green silk scarf. The coat is held 
in at the waist by a broad belt, with ornaments 
of brass rudely shaped like the letter S. His high 
black boots are of soft leather, with a neat slipper 
over the foot. His head is covered by a conical 
and embroidered skull-cap, around which a turban 
of fine white silk is wound, so that only the point 
of the cap can be seen ; but this turban is unwound 
and laid aside when the train is moving. He also 
possesses a long and thoroughly European over- 
coat of greenish blue. With his black beard and 
neat clothes, he makes quite a fine figure. I and 
my luggage attract his undivided attention; he 
has just enquired of the guide I engaged in Samar- 
qand — an honest Russian from the German - 
speaking provinces — where I come from ; of course 
he takes me for a commercial traveller, tourists 
being almost unknown in this country; hence his 
professional interest in the — to him — enormous 
quantity of my luggage. While I am occupying 
his polite curiosity, the little train puifs along 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 45 

slowly over a desert plain, out of which Bukhara 
finally emerges about six o'clock. 



February 16* 
As the native city is at a distance from the Hotel 
Turan — quite a clean little place, where fresh bed- 
ding is to be had, but at a tariff higher than that 
for linen already used ! — I took a carriage to drive 
'to the bank, of whose existence Bukhariat drivers 
and natives appear profoundly ignorant. We 
finally reached the walls engirdling the town 
proper, and entered after much delay in front of 
a gateway, where a tangle of carts, teamsters, and 
onlookers, was vociferously engaged in trying to 
get the teams through heavy mud and up a mons- 
trous hummock in the road. After much driving 
about through the bottomless bog of streets, where 
two carriages can scarcely pass, the bank was 
reached; whence — my business ended — I set out 
on foot, accompanied by my guide, to see the 
ancient and famous city of the Amirs. 

It is another of the raw grey days that I am 
beginning to think inevitable in Turkestan. 
Great Bukhara, the mightiest mart in mid- Asia, 
lies within walls of clay some twenty feet high 
but is no more than a net-work of moderately 
wide unpaved streets, debouching into small 
market-places that chance or habit have placed 
here and there. With a blazing sun to illumine 
the brilliant costumes, and cast over everything 



46 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the enchantment of golden light mingled with 
shadow, the city might be picturesque; for there 
is no doubt that, to reveal its secrets, the Orient 
requires the splendour of sun-rays shooting through 
breathless haze. To-day under a chilly sullen 
sky, all things appear lifeless and dull. The 
sordid is so much more patent than anything 
else, as to be painful. Divested of the contrast 
between shadow and reflected light, the walls are 
obviously built with mud. The roadways form 
a viscous bog, the mere sight of which is nauseous, 
whilst walking in the black slime is as repulsive 
as it is fatiguing. The most conspicuous wares 
displayed for sale are trumpery objects brought 
from the Occident, such as may be seen in the 
poorest quarters of any western city. The 
costumes are generally made of stuffs broadly 
striped with brilliant colours, obviously in- 
digenous and therefore prettier than the printed 
cottons shipped from Moscow; yet even they are 
ineffective in the drab light of so sombre a day. 
It may be that in the sensation of the already 
seen, I am merely paying the penalty exacted of 
all who travel much; but certainly after Algeria 
and Tunis, Bukhara's renowned bazar offers no 
surprise. In point of picturesqueness, it cannot 
be compared to the cleaner and better built bazars 
of Tunis; while both the costumes and those who 
wear them lack that distinction which marks the 

Arab 

The very name of Bukhara has for me always 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 47 

been a potent spell, evoking a princely city of 
learning in old days, with a boundless bazar nobly 
vaulted, where — through apertures left in the 
vault-crowns — quivering beams of light shoot 
down and leap from gorgeous stuff to gorgeous 
stuff. This fabulous city I did not expect to find 
in reality; but I did hope to encounter something 
more strange and beautiful than the city I see 
to-day. A sense of depression and disillusion, 
vague but hard to dismiss, has in consequence 
stolen over me. Perhaps had I visited Bukhara 
before similar places in other lands, certainly had 
I seen it for the first time under sunlight falling 
from a sky of ultramarine, I might have felt other- 
wise; since these cold and sober days make one 
keenly conscious of all the filth, cruelty, and 
carelessness, which form so real and horrible a 
part of life in towns of the eastward world. 

The boggy streets through which I pick my 
way with difficulty, are for the most part covered 
over by flat roofs, borne by round beams of no 
great size, and from time to time pierced by open- 
ings to admit the light. Both sides of these slimy 
sombre passages are bordered by diminutive 
shops, where merchants squat among their goods 
in oriental style — though I notice that here, in- 
stead of sitting cross-legged, they kneel with legs 
stretched out behind them, so the body rests on 
the upturned heels. Most of the wares are either 
cotton stuffs, probably of European manufacture 
and shoddy articles of household use from the 



48 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

West, or else native food in various stages of filth. 
There is nothing attractive for sale except pointed 
caps — small gaily made affairs, which the men 
wear with the peaks emerging from the centre of 

their turbans In some places the streets 

pass — unroofed — between the walls of houses 
built, like all Bukhara, of sun-dried clay. In 
such places the most distinctive and the only 
picturesque sights are the storks' nests on the 
apex of every tower and on the corner of every 
crumbling mosque-fagade. They stand out con- 
spicuously in clumsy masses now empty, with 
neither occupant nor visitor, unless it be a small 
grey and black crow, who may by chance perch 
jauntily on the edge. These bowl-shaped nests 
produce a most ludicrous effect, overhanging and 
half crushing the walls or domes they cap. In 
bazars and streets alike, one of the most striking 
things is the endless quantity of pitiful dogs ; poor 
brutes half stupefied by disease, with hairless 
patches of scabby swollen skin, shivering as they 
slink along in fear of blows or stones. So many 
heart-wringing curs I never saw in one place 
before. The misery of dumb animals is in all 
countries, even among the so-called civilised, 
horrible enough to observe ; but here in the indiffer- 
ent Orient, it is — to anyone afflicted with imagina- 
tion — almost too ghastly to be endured. 

After a little, my wanderings bring me to the 
Registan, which is entirely filled with small wooden 
booths. At one side it joins a little square, whence 



^ '^-^r^ 




A Mosque and a Hawz, Bukhara 









The Natives in the Registan, Bukhara 




The Registan, Bukhara 

(The figure in the foreground is the merchant from Khokand, who asked to have his 

photograph taken) 




A Group in the Registan, Bukhara 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 49 

the roadway rises suddenly to the fortified gateway 
of the Amir's citadel, situated on a slight eminence, 
but only just visible over the roofs it dominates. 
This square is crowded with men, gathered here 
and there in groups diversely occupied. One of 
the largest is listening to a story-teller, who moves 
about while reciting with great volubility and 
exuberant gesture. In another place a man, 
seated on a rough platform covered with a piece 
of stuff to protect him against mud and damp, is 
at work polishing stones on a primitive emery 
wheel. From another group the Khokand mer- 
chant, whose interest I aroused on the train com- 
ing to Bukhara, detaches himself to follow me 
and my camera, quite fascinated and finally 
unable to keep from asking me to take his photo- 
graph. Many of the costumes are extremely 
brilliant, being made of bright stuffs broadly 
striped with different colours; sometimes with a 
stripe of solid colour alternating with one in which 
different shades fade one into the other. Were 
the sun to cast his spell of gold and shadow-black 
across the scene, it would be gorgeous ; even to-day 
beneath this lowering sky it is striking. 

Across the Registan, the portal of a mosque, 
built after the same design as those at Samarqand, 
but smaller and less impressive, beetles above 
the shoddy booths. Here — as from nearly all the 
Bukhara mosques — practically the whole of the 
mosaic has fallen, baring the brown rubble, to 
which small patches of blue cling only here and 



50 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

there. Judging by what remains, the patterns 
of glazed brick so common in Samarqand were 
not used for decoration so much as tile-mosaics, 
where branching flowers in large vases and other 
devices spread over surfaces subdivided by mosaic 
bands. The beauty of this work must have been 
great, yet it is doubtful whether the general effect 
was so fine as that of the more architectural treat- 
ment at Samarqand Not far from here 

a group of houses encloses a considerable area, 
almost entirely occupied by a sunken pool of 
opaque and greenish-black water, completely 
surrounded by a flight of five or six stone steps 
descending to the horrible liquid. A few men 
are gathered on the lower steps, some laving their 
feet, some washing mouths and hands as well as 
feet, still others collecting this infected water in 
great vessels — that are nothing more than goat- 
skins sewn together with the hair inside — ready 
to carry it away to be sold for drinking and cook- 
ing. There being several of these noisome pools 
in different parts of the town, the wonder is not 
so much that the natives are afflicted by rishta 
worms and other horrid diseases, as that any of 
them can live. One side of the square occupied 
by this particular hawz or tank, is bordered by 
an unusual kind of mosque or prayer-portico. In 
front of a wall with arched recesses, lofty wooden 
columns — in two rows of ten each — support a 
roof also of wood. These columns, placed on high 
bases curiously carved, are very slender and twisted 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 51 

like a coiled snake — bulb-shaped where they rest 
on the bases, then tapering toward the capitals. 
At the top, where the shafts are necessarily very 
small, masses of Arabic honeycomb carving sud- 
denly spread out wider and wider, in a series of 
monstrous capitals made in separate pieces 
fastened to the pillars; almost all of them have 
completely disappeared, whilst in one place a few 
fragments, held together by string, dangle about 
the shaft. This portico is separated from the 
square by a wooden screen, and must in old days 
— when painted and gilded — have been a gaudy 
spot; to-day in this ghastly light, with its paintless 
wood dingy with decay, and its fragmentary capi- 
tals dangling about tottering columns, between 
which crows flap noisily over omnipresent dirt, 
— it presents an image of "dust and ashes," that 
leads to trite but ever-poignant thoughts of how 
all things pass 

Wandering through the bazars, sometimes I 
chance upon curious sights. Beside a gateway 
a man is seated, holding a falcon on his gloved 
hand — like some picture of a medieeval falconer 
come to life. The large slender bird, speckled 
with olive-brown and black, has a cruel look as 
it sits very quietly on the falconer's fist, slowly 
turning its curved beak and small head, without 
a tremor of the round wide-open eyes in which 
the pupils have contracted to narrow slits. 
Around its neck is a silver ornament with a little 
bell on either side, and on its legs are red jesses 



52 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

fastening it to its master's hand. Man and bird 
are a striking survival of customs we usually 
think long since gone by. Through another portal 
not far away, I can see a court where astrakhan 
is being sold ; tiny fleeces are lying about among the 
traffickers, and one poor black baby lamb — still 
alive — is trembling on its ludicrously long and 
unsteady legs; a man in Cossack dress passes me 
by, carrying in one hand a pitiful little fleece of 
shiny black, while the other grasps the steamy 
bleeding carcass of the newly-flayed lamb. What 
a brutally devouring and malignly indifferent 
thing life really is, when on rare occasions we 
dare look it square in the face ! 

Some notability or rich merchant has just rid- 
den by, splashing mud in every direction as he 
moves down the sombre passage, where ragged 
retainers, running before and after him, throw 
into relief the dull gleam of his golden robe. Pic- 
turesque carts, such as I saw at Samarqand, pass 
through not infrequently. Their build is peculiar; 
— a pair of enormous wheels, some six or seven 
feet across, supports heavy shafts, on the rear 
half of which a rude platform is laid. Near either 
end of this, a sort of yoke is set up, the front one 
much lower than the rear one; these hoops are 
joined together by a frame- work covered with 
canvas, forming — over a portion of the platform 
— a shelter like a truncated cone. The wheels 
and shafts are unpainted; the outside of the hood 
is also without decoration, but its supporting 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 53 

yokes and ribs are all gaily bedizened. The 
horses have harnesses ornamented with small 
white shells and beads of various colours; but the 
most conspicuous part is the rude saddle, on which 
the driver often sits with his feet resting on the 
shafts. Altogether these carts are strange-looking 
affairs as they jolt through bogs and over hum- 
mocks, shaking up the turbaned and brightly 

dressed occupants The women are gowned 

in shrouds like those of Samarqand, but here many 
of them wear vivid green. Surrounding the nar- 
row triangle of black face-veil, this brilliant colour 
is very startling. Turkomen are quite numerous 
— tall fellows with long hair under black bonnets 
of shaggy sheep-skin over a foot high and very 
big around. They wear long cloaks of some woolly 
cloth almost like felt, of a beautiful deep black, 
hanging straight in a few stiff folds, but widening 
out from the shoulders to nearly double the width, 
where at the bottom they stop just above the 
heels. Long strands of soft hair cling to these 
stately mantles, which are further enlivened by 
a strip of silver braid running around the neck and 
a few inches down the front. 

As the day is raw and frosty, almost all the 
shops have small round braziers with squat legs, 
before which the immobile owners sit cross-legged, 
like idols in their gloomy shrines, warming their 
hands over the ashes and hot embers. Most of 
the men carry small orange-coloured gourds; 
these they continually raise to their mouths — 



54 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

after throwing back their heads — and then shake 
out of them a kind of powdered chewing tobacco, 
everywhere exposed for sale in piles of vividly 
green and bilious dust, the very sight of which 
turns a European stomach. Gourds of all kinds 
abound; in fact there are whole streets in the bazar 
where nothing else is sold. They vary in colour 
from pale yellow to deep orange, with an occasional 
black one; and in size, range from tiny tobacco- 
holders to large ones hollowed out and fitted with 
reeds for use as narghiles. 

A funeral is now passing; just a litter borne on 
men's shoulders, with high sides hung with -^or- 
geous red and gold brocade, hiding the body within. 
The bearers utter a series of cries or moans, as 
they move along swiftly with no one following; 
but their gaudy burden, swaying to right and left, 
or up and down with the inequalities of the ground, 
suggests anything rather than death. After this 
Asian funeral has passed unheeded, I step through 
a portal into an enclosure filled by another tank 
of emerald slime, stagnating under the boughs 
of its leafless trees among scaled and crumbling 
walls. At one side booths are built, where men 
are working, and a tea- vendor has his samovars 
ready for use. A man is seated on a bench, with 
a pretty bird attached to his hand by a fine wire 
about its neck; it flutters and then flies, only to 
be forced to re-alight by the almost invisible bond 
which binds it to its indifferent captor. Boys and 
men are huddled on the ground around crates of 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 55 

poultry exposed for sale; one of them is actually 
filled with crows, amongst which a dying bird lies 
on its back with fast-glazing eyes and fallen wings 
spread out. A dying crow and a fluttering cap- 
tive, beside stagnant water amid the decay of a 
once imperial city ; what bitter symbols of all life ! 
From here there is a view across mud roofs to 
the famous minaret once used for execution, and 
the nearby dome of the Kabjan Mosque. The 
latter still retains its turquoise-coloured tiling, 
and is at present decorated by five storks' nests 
perched on the crown and slopes — great black 
excrescences that give the beautiful cupola a 
ludicrous air of neglect. Slipping and struggling 
along through the slimy morass of streets, I finally 
leave the bazars and reach the little square in 
front of the Kabjan Mosque; its fagade is built 
on the usual plan, but is entirely divested of 
mosaic; nothing remains but rough walls of pale 
umber, above which the blue dome shines faintly, 
far to the rear across the court, like some aban- 
doned jewel. At one corner of the shabby square, 
but entirely detached from the mosque, the great 
minaret, from whose top condemned criminals 
were until recently hurled to death, rises high in 
the air against a slowly moving drapery of ashen 
clouds. It is built of buff brick, tapering sharply 
from base to top, and is ringed with wide bands 
formed by diversified patterns in which the bricks 
are laid. At the top of what might be called its 
shaft, is a single band of blue tiles; above this 



56 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

there is an overhanging lantern, pierced by narrow 
arches and crowned by a series of corbels spread- 
ing out like a great capital, on whose centre stands 
a small pyramid now adorned by a stork's nest. 
On the third side of the square, is a wide space 
raised some ten feet above the ground to form a 
terrace in front of a second mosque. In this and 
other mosques at Bukhara, the court is not entered 
directly as at Samarqand. It is surrounded by 
a corridor, where the worshipper is obliged — on 
passing the portal — to turn sharply to right or left 
until he reaches the corner arcades, which alone 
open into the court. This particular passage is 
vaulted with a curiously complicated system of 
intersecting surfaces, built of brick and carrying 
very flat domes. In one corner there is a window 
with tracery, which still retains all its tiles; gor- 
geous blues with deep yellow flowers, shining like 
rich enamels. 

At no great distance is another small and untidy 
square, where two dilapidated mosques face one 
another — pale sepia walls with blue and green 
mosaics peeling off in pitiful disarray. One of 
them has kept undamaged an entire panel as 
beautiful as jewel-work; on a sapphire ground, a 
pale green vase, with yellow patterns, holds long- 
stemmed flowers of pale bluish green with orange 
patches outlined in white. In front of each 
mosque the ground is raised and paved like a ter- 
race, leaving a broad roadway to enter the bazars 
at either end of the square. Men in gaudy gowns 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 57 

and soiled white turbans gather about me when 
I try to take photographs, deeply interested and 
altogether mystified by the operation of changing 
films. One fellow begs to have his photograph 
taken, but withdraws his request on learning that 
I cannot instantly hand him the finished picture. 
Rows of diminutive donkeys stand patiently in 
front of the terraces; some heavily laden, others 
for the moment unburdened, but all resigned and 
listless, with great furry ears slowly moving back 
and forth above their pathetic heads. Turbaned 
men are engaged in every kind of occupation, 
some in the roadway, some leaning against the 
terrace walls, some walking about on top of it, 
or even lying down at full length. The entrance 
to the bazar yawns like the mouth of a gloomy 
tunnel; above the wall the top of the once- 
lethal minaret stands out among domes of dun or 
turquoise. 

February 17*^ 
The almost forgotten sun has to-day appeared, 
shining brightly in a cobalt sky, across which in 
lazy masses white clouds drift. Things are no 
longer "no more than what they really are," 
since the sun has cast over all a magic quite as 
potent as that of the sorceress who, in old tales, 
transforms beggars into princelings. Reality is 
to-day what it was yesterday, but appearances 
are other. Even the sloughs of mud are less re- 
pulsive, while the walls of dried clay are ambered 



58 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

with light and diversified by shadows, which give 
rehef to what was before monotonous. In this 
morning play of Hght and shade, things which 
yesterday were dead and dreary spring suddenly 
into light. Pulsing shafts of sun dart through 
openings in bazar-roofs, and leap from object to 
object like living creatures. The very shadows 
are animate, and no longer mere veils of gloom. 
The costumes which yesterday were masses of 
bright colour, contrasting harshly with their 
drab environment, this morning seem harmxonised 
by the golden ambience into which all things melt. 
Yesterday objects were all on a single plane; this 
morning in the chequering of shade and sunlight, 
they have acquired relief and wealth of detail. 
Men move gaily in brightly-striped costumes 
with turbans varying in size and degrees of white- 
ness; or else sit before their shops, with oriental 
impassivity and placid eyes, gazing fixedly over 
stately beards often white — like idols robed in 
shining silk. Boys dash about, and occasionally 
a rich merchant rides down the bazar on a decent 
horse, followed by an attendant. Story-tellers 
stand or squat at crossways, their white turbans 
either gleaming in the sun, or else palely luminous 
if they chance to stand in covered places. They 
recite loudly, hoarsely, and excitedly, with great 
wealth of gesture ; from time to time one or two men 
seated across the street — apparently followers of 
the recitant — intone a nasal chant in loud choruses. 
To-day when everything has acquired a certain 




A Prayer Portico and a Hawz, Bukhara 




..^^i«-.a»^i-» >;» ».i ni« i i ^g| i i p i i|f iifi]|i i » mt|a>nwiia, 




A Hawz with View of the Kabjan Mosque, Bukhara 



Minaret of the Kabjan Mosque, Bukhara 
This tower was formerly used as a place 
of execution for criminals, who were 
hurled from the top 






f'iK^ 




An Entrance to the Bazars, Bukhara 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 59 

picturesqueness ; when the filth and misery seem 
transmuted, or at least half-veiled, by the chari- 
table sun which plays just now on Bukhara, — the 
city produces a new impression. Even the green 
tanks hide their foul water beneath bright reflec- 
tions; whilst the turquoise dome of the Kabjan 
Mosque, with its deserted storks' nests, fairly glitters 
in the sun. Nevertheless, to become really curious, 
a city such as this should be seen in warm or 
— best of all — hot weather. Then the light seems 
molten; the air is tremulous with waves of heat; 
the earth is veiled with buff and gold, while colours 
flash on every side; everything sordid disappears, 
as the sun melts all things into a single picture, 
glowing like splendid enamels fused on a bright 

gold plaque 

Late in the afternoon the little train carries me 
from Bukhara down the branch line to Kagan, 
where I board the so-called express that is to take 
me on to Askabad, and thence by carriages over 
mountain ranges into Persia. The heavy train 
trails its broad carriages across the plain as night 
begins to gather. It has fallen, unbroken by 
light either in the sky or across the plains, when 
we reach the 'Amu Darya — the Oxus of antiquity. 
I can just discern an expanse of dull water, bending 
suddenly as it passes under the bridge, whose 
beams and trestles cast a sable tracery across its 
olive-black surface. Since the days when, a boy 
at school, I read the sonorous verse of Sohrab 
and Rustum, I have dreamed of how: — 



6o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

"The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog^ 
From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands." 

Here I am, crossing the river that is musical with 
memories of Arnold's stately poem, the very river 
that perhaps halted Alexander of Macedon with 
all his hosts; yes, crossing it — but in a railway 
carriage on a modern bridge! How prosaic it all 
is! nothing but night, dull water, and a Russian 
train slowly rolling across an iron bridge. 



February iS^l' 
Last night the soldier — ^who in Turkestan ac- 
companies the guard, and makes frequent trips 
through the corridors on his own account — put 
his head into my carriage and began to talk volubly. 
This had happened several times since Moscow; 
but hitherto, when I had remarked that I knew no 
Russian, and paid no further attention, they had 
withdrawn in despair. This time my tactics were 
ineffectual, and the soldier showed no signs of 
departing ; so I decided that I must discover what 
he wished. Remembering that the Russian- 
speaking Frenchman, who had travelled with me 
as far as Tashkent, had overtaken me at Bukhara, 
and was now in one of the forward carriages; I 
started out to find him, my military escort helping 
me politely across the open platform as though I 
were a lady or an old man. When I finally dis- 
covered my Frenchman, and he enquired what the 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 6i 

soldier wished, it appeared that the knickerbockers 
I chanced to be wearing, had made him conclude 
I must be an English officer. He was therefore 
much perturbed, and anxious to know by what 
right and for what purpose I was travelling in 
Turkestan. When he learned that I was an 
American duly authorised by Imperial Govern- 
ment, he made one of the deep Russian obeisances 
that bow the spine in two, and then retired. As 
the Russians have no great fortresses in these 
parts, and there is nothing in all Turkestan about 
which any nation cannot readily inform itself; 
the elaborate precautions with which their 
Government hedges the country — ^not to mention 
its panicky attitude towards subjects of its ally, 
England — seem as childish as they are irritating. 

It was night when we passed through the ruins 
of Merv, so I did not have even a fleeting glimpse 
of one of the most ancient cities of the world ; that 
quondam glory of the East, whose resistance em- 
bittered Chingiz Khan so deeply as to provoke 
order to raze the entire city and slaughter — ac- 
cording to Arab chroniclers— a million of men. I 
had wished to see it, but the paucity of its ruins 
and the impossible nature of inns and train-service, 
as well as inclement weather, caused me to re- 
nounce my project. I now half regret my decision 
since, on waking, the sun shines brightly and the 
air is soft and warm. 

We are now skirting the Russo-Persian frontier, 
marked by small hillocks and at times a trench — 



62 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

so close to noble mountains, it seems almost 
possible to touch them. The plain is dull brown 
— tinged with madder where it nears the foot-hills, 
either marbled with olive green where sickly grass 
grows like immense lichens, or spotted with buff 
where the earth is overturned. The first line of 
mountains is considerably lower than those behind ; 
it has round finger-like spurs that seem to grasp 
the plain (just as roots of giant trees seize the 
earth) and swelling summits, where the snow 
glitters in the sun v/ithout a break, — a white 
mantle, faintly glazed with lavender melting into 
blue-grey shadows. Behind these there rises a 
loftier range of steep and jagged peaks, v/hich 
primaeval force has graven and rived. Their bare 
pinnacles, piercing the range with needle-fine 
points, are very grand. When from time to time 
a level ridge interrupts the serrated line, snow 
draws bands of white across the sky ; but, in general, 
on these higher mountains snow only remains in 
hollows and on gentler slopes. As a whole, the 
range is silver-grey melting into paler tones of 
mauve; but it is flecked with blue- white patches 
of snow, and broken by multiform masses of pale 
grey shadow warming to lavender — wherever a 
hollow sinks or some shoulder begins to mount. 
Formless clouds — milky white with opal tints — 
overhang the summits, and fade gradually into 
a colourless sky, slowly turning clear blue as it 
ascends toward the zenith. 

On the other side of the train, the plain stretches 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 63 

away to the horizon apparently far distant — an 
endless level of dull siena, faintly tinged with rose- 
purple where it begins to lose itself in the sky. 
Not a tree or shrub, not even a bush, is in sight. 
At long intervals we pass villages, with gateways 
of sun-dried clay and clay walls, above which a 
few bare trees and the roofs of clay houses also 
show. Camels, sheep, and sometimes small horses 
crop the umber desert. For one moment, a line of 
pale blue water shimmers in the distance — prob- 
ably a mirage. At the station of Anan the ruins 
of an abandoned city lie a few hundred yards 
away ; mud walls, mud houses, an endless number 
of small round towers of dried mud — dotted about 
like big pepper-pots — with the ruined portal of a 
mosque, on a high terrace, looming over every- 
thing. Brown walls, brown towers, brown roofs, 
form a sepia monochrome, whose lines and shat- 
tered masses stand out picturesquely against 
the whiteness of the mountains. 

At the railway-stations the Sarths have disap- 
peared, their places being taken by a splendid set 
of tall slim Turkomen. Some are dressed like 
those at Bukhara, but a number have robes of 
pure red with fine stripes of black. All of them 
are wearing those enormous sheep-skin bonnets 
that seem to be a Turkoman's distinctive mark. 
Most of these are black, but some a reddish brown 
which makes the owner look as though he had an 
enormous shock of ruddy hair and no hat ; a very 
few are white. One man is conspicuous by reason 



64 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of his red and black stockings, and his mediaeval- 
looking clogs with high heels and thick wooden 
soles laced over the foot with leather thongs. 

It is nearly two o'clock when we reach Askabad. 
The train has scarcely arrived, when a soldier — 
despatch in hand — rushes up to my French and 
Spanish acquaintances, to enquire if they are the 
persons mentioned in his telegram as travelling 
to the railway terminus at Krasnovodsk on the 
Caspian. For some reason, there are no enquiries 
about me this time. After a little I manage to 
find the Persian guide, Aghajan, who has been 
sent from Tihran to meet me. He appears to 
be intelligent and fairly active. To enquiries con- 
cerning his origin, he replies that he is by birth a 
Jew, but hastens to add that he has been to the 
mission-school, and is now a Christian. It would 
be interesting to know in what his Christianity 

consists The town proves to be entirely 

modern and fairly clean, with broad streets but 
no objects of interest. It is, however, less sordid 
than the generality of such places, and is rendered 
almost beautiful by the cold purity of a blue- 
white mountain range, so near the city it seems 
peering into it. The hotel is — for Turkestan — 
quite a cleanly and palatial place. 

Shortly after arriving, Aghajan takes me to see 
the Persian Consul, whose visa on passports is re- 
quired when entering Persia. He proves pleas- 
ant, civil, and quite the most hospitable person 
that I have met in some time. Coffee is served 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 65 

while my passport is being stamped, and I have 
scarcely reached the hotel, when he calls to leave 
a card inviting me to tea. His wife and sister-in- 
law are Albanians, and at tea we all converse in 
French. The Consul's polite manner scarcely 
conceals his dislike of Russia and the vexatious 
policy here employed. After tea is over, and a 
cordial invitation to dinner the next day has been 
extended to me, I start out to arrange for trans- 
port to Mashhad. The Persian carriage-pro- 
prietor is an emaciated old robber with a sallow 
birdlike face, who wears a long coat of lemon- 
coloured skin flung across his shoulders. After a 
great deal of haggling, I strike a bargain for two 
carriages — if they can be called such; a battered 
landau, in the last stages of decay, is to carry 
Said, Aghajan, and myself, over the mountains, 
I hope safely; all that is left of a brougham, with 
a faded lining of red and yellow stripes, is to trans- 
port my luggage. We are to travel post, that is 
to say with relays of horses maintained by Gov- 
ernment — in Persia a polite fiction. However, I 
cannot start until day after to-morrow, as the 
post leaves to-morrow and takes all the horses. 
The price agreed on is very high, and it is more 
than probable that I am being roundly robbed, 
despite the governmental tariff regulating the rates, 
which I am shown. Be this as it may, the pro- 
prietor in making change, tries to cheat me out 
of a twenty-rouble note — for of course I am obliged 
to pay in advance. There is no doubt that my 
5 



66 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

vigilance will have to be unceasing, if I do not 
wish to be enmeshed by the proverbial dishonesty 
of Persia. 

After this I have to visit the money-changer, 
in order to exchange a hundred Russian roubles 
for Persian coin. Both gold and note are practi- 
cally unknown in Persia; in the larger cities the 
different branches of the Imperial Bank of Persia 
— an institution under English control — issues 
bank-notes, which are good only in the place of 
issue. Here in Askabad, the only currency is 
silver in two qirdn pieces, worth about one franc 
of French money, but double the size of that coin. 
After Aghajan has sorted them out with great 
vigour, rejecting the pierced ones and biting 
others to make sure they are not lead ; two hundred 
and eighty-six of these pieces are tied up in a little 
bag of burlap and carted off, weighing heaven 
knows how much. It makes one feel like a 
paymaster-general starting on his rounds. 



February 19*.^ 
Last night I was aroused by a tremendous noise 
of drum and fife, playing in oriental time. Al- 
though the rhythm was eastern, it proved to be 
a wedding-party dressed in European clothes. A 
number of men, carrying lighted candles, preceded 
the bride wearing a white gown and veil; she 
walked between a man (presumably the groom) 
attired in a full dress-suit and an overcoat thrown 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 67 

over his shoulders, and a youth with a student 
cap. Women with white scarfs thrown over 
their heads completed the group. Every few 
minutes all of them stopped to shout and form a 
circle whilst two men danced a sort of cancan, 
which appeared to bore the bride and groom hugely ; 
then they advanced a little further and repeated 
this same procedure — the drum beating away and 
the oriental flute burbling furiously all the while. 
Here at Askabad the police authorities place 
such difflculty in the path of foreigners, as seem 
vexatious even to those inured to the ways of 
Russian officialdom. When Aghajan reported 
himself on arriving, he was cheerfully informed 
that, should the traveller for whom he expected 
to act as guide, prove to be English, — he and his 
master would on no account be permitted to cross 
into Persia. — In these parts it is rather humorous 
to recall the fact that both Russia and Great 
Britain belong to the Triple Entente. — As soon 
as I arrived, I sent my passports to the authorities, 
requesting that they might be returned at once 
with the visa without which no one can leave 
Russia. This realm of the Tsar resembles a 
prison, in so much as it can neither be entered nor 
left without due process of law. When I returned 
to the hotel about seven o'clock last night, I found 
an officer waiting to see me about my passports, 
— police duty being in military hands here in 
Turkestan. He was a stocky individual, with a 
comfortable rotundity tightly buttoned up inside 



68 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a military great-coat. As there was no other 
place in which to receive this troublesome but 
potent individual, I had to see him in my bedroom. 
Here, in addition to the passports he already held, 
I produced my letter from the Russian Ambassa- 
dor and a copy of the verbal (for they refuse to 
give a written) communication made by Imperial 
Government to the Embassy at Petersburg, grant- 
ing me permission to visit specified places in speci- 
fied order — all liberty of movement being denied 
foreigners so annoying as to wish to travel through 
Turkestan. Since my official visitor was unable 
to speak anything but his own tongue, of which 
I know nothing, Aghajan had to use his limited 
stock of Russian and interpret for me ; whereupon 
a veritable inquisition took place. I was asked: 
where I came from ; why I wished to enter Persia ; 
who was my employer; if I had none, what was 
1 doing in Turkestan; did I own a house in my 
native city ; what was my income, and how acquired ; 
and many other idle and vexatious questions. 
As my fate lay in the hands of this rotund ojfficial 
spider, it was necessary to be extremely polite; 
yet I thought it wise that my manner should, at 
the same time, betray resentment of the more 
impertinent of his questions. After ending my 
interrogatory, he gathered up all my papers, de- 
clared he must take them to headquarters for 
inspection, and marched off — smoking one of my 
cigarettes. A little later, a telephone message 
arrived, to the e&opt that my papers would be 



MOSCOW TO ASKABAD 69 

kept overnight, and I must call for them in person 
next morning. To stir without passports pro- 
perly vised would be impossible, as, even if I 
managed to leave the city, I should inevitably be 
detained at the frontier. These fussy formalities, 
and a consciousness of how helpless one is in the 
hands of these autocratic persons, aroused very 
unpleasant sensations. The possibility of being 
obliged to proceed to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian, 
or even to return to Moscow, was not pleasant 
to consider. Fortunately the authorities tele- 
phoned this morning, to say that I need not come 
to headquarters myself, and handed over my 
passports duly vised to Aghajan. However, I 
still suspect that without the Russian Ambassa- 
dor's letter of recommendation, I might have been 
refused permission to enter Persia; at any rate, 
I know that I shall be delighted, when once I 
have crossed the frontier out of reach of further 
formalities. 

My official difficulties being now at an end, I 
feel free to make a few necessary purchases. 
Aghajan tells me that in all the shops they are 
astonished to hear me speak a language not Rus- 
sian, and immediately enquire who I am, where I 
come from, and what language I am using. At a 
half after two, I arrive at the house of the hos- 
pitable Persian Consul, but it is nearly three o'clock 
when we sit down to a long and excellent dinner. 
The meal is scarcely ended, when tea and sweets 
are served. Wherever the Consul goes, he is fol- 



70 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

lowed by a very smart Persian Cossack, wearing 
a grey astrakhan bonnet and a great-coat cut like 
that of the Russian Cossacks, but in colour a 
beautiful ruby red, with a white scarf draped 
between the shoulders. Before I leave, the Consul 
is kind enough to give me a letter to a friend, one 
of the Persian generals at Mashhad. I have never 
been received v/ith greater courtesy, and certainly 
have never had such hospitality extended to me 
by a stranger who knew nothing about me. 



II 

ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 



71 



II 

ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 

February 20* 
An overcast and threatening day. I wished 
to start at eight o'clock; but Persians having no 
idea of punctuaHty, the carriages are over an 
hour late in arriving. Then there is further 
delay in loading the luggage, and stowing parts 
of my kit in convenient places. Since Persian 
drivers do not inspire confidence, I order the 
dilapidated brougham, filled with luggage, to lead 
the way, so it cannot get out of sight. Finally 
the two wrecks, each with four horses harnessed 
abreast, succeed in starting. In such ramshackle 
old conveyances, driven by such strange and shabby 
creatures, I have never before travelled; while 
the dirty white Turkoman's bonnet worn by my 
driver only makes the procession more ludicrous. 
On leaving Askabad, the road crosses a barren 
plain, beyond which the mountains are completely 
hidden in mist — a very dreary prospect indeed; 
then it begins to ascend the lower slopes in long 
loops, under a heavy drizzle that soon turns to 
fine rain. The only living things in sight are 

73 



74 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

flocks of sheep grazing wearily. Occasionally we 
pass a rude wagon painted red, with sloping sides 
and a rounded canvas hood — rather like the 
"prairie schooners," which in earliest days were 
used to cross our plains in search of the new found 
gold. Sometimes we cross convoys of mules 
laden with merchandise; at the first place where 
we halt to breathe our sorry horses, there is a 
caravan of some thirty camels, still loaded but 
kneeling and eating slowly, while their drivers sit 
around the fire. When we have passed a man 
flaying a scarcely dead camel beside the road, we 
meet a train of wagons carrying cotton from Mash- 
had, with drivers in shaggy bonnets, and Russian 
soldiers at front and rear accompanying them from 
the frontier to collect customs-duties at Askabad. 
At noon we halt at a filthy caravanserai to 
change horses and permit me to lunch. Dingy 
white buildings of one storey surround a courtyard 
full of mud and manure ; wrapped up in my over- 
coat, I am sitting in a small room — bare and 
dirty — with two stoves that cannot be lighted. 
Outside, rain falls intermittently and grey mist 
hangs a pall over everything. Sheep and a few 
lambs, some newly born, stand about the slimy 
court. A camel is fastened under a shed, solemnly 
chewing with flabby lips, while moving his great 
head slowly from side to side, with an air of dis- 
dain words cannot render. He is the image of a 
contented indifference, no power could perturb. 
From time to time cocks crow or a hen clucks 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 75 

loudly; but the lamentable crying of sheep is un- 
interrupted. Despite these noises, I am vaguely 
conscious of that hush which always falls when 
mist muffles the air and makes all sounds remote 
and ominous. A dog pads about the muddy en- 
closure and chickens parade the shed-roofs, over 
which little birds or a chance magpie sometimes 
flutter. The hills rise sheer, directly behind the 
caravanserai — dirty brown with scaly patches 
of green. A few horses lazily crop a ridge, while 
the flock of sheep that just now filled the court- 
yard, slowly undulates up the hillside — most of 
them dust-coloured, but some black, with here 
and there one rusty brown. Herdsmen in huge 
bonnets lean on their staves, conversing. The 
rain has ceased, but — a few hundred yards away — 
mist has drawn a veil across the valley, hiding all 
the hills except a few pallid flakes of snow seen 
through the fringe of vapour. Desolation and 
melancholy reign unalleviated. 

When we start with fresh horses, the road be- 
gins to rise more steeply, for the first time winding 
upward in great loops. Nothing is visible but 
brown and desolate hills with snow in every de- 
pression, and grey mist wavering below the in- 
visible summits. A few tiny shrubs — entirely 
bare — form the only vegetation, each coated 
with ice until it stands out in transparent silver. 
Gradually the snow grows deeper and wider-spread, 
until earth strewn with heaps of snow, is replaced 
by snow broken by patches of earth. In some 



76 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

places a bank, running with liquid mud and rills of 
water, overhangs the road-bed. Bending over these 
banks, or clinging to steep hillsides, or piercing 
level fields of snow, large bushes begin to show 
above the clumps of dwarfed shrub. They too 
are leafless and sheathed in pearly ice, their 
twisted crystal branches looking so fantastic, 
they seem the work of silversmiths rather than 
of nature. This ice-decked shrubbery is the one 
thing which lends a touch of grace to so morose an 
ascent. 

When sitting in the carriage grows wearisome, 
I start to tramp up the roadway, filled with orange 
mud trickling with water, and banked by piles of 
snow on either side. Suddenly a distant tinkling 
— like that of Alpine cow-bells — floats through 
the greyness, drawing steadily nearer, until a 
camel's snaky head emerges from the mist, as 
though through a curtain, followed by another 
and still other camels. It is a caravan bringing 
cotton from Sabzawar to Askabad. The huge 
ungainly beasts march by with a slow sure swing ; 
their shaggy eyebrows, their snouts, and the 
long hair hanging from their arched necks, hoary 
with particles of congealed moisture — glittering 
feebly like powdered pearl. They are laden with 
a bale of cotton placed on each side of the rude 
pack-saddles. The knotted ends of their halter 
ropes stand up, sparkling with frost like jewelled 
tassels, between their dark indifferent eyes, out 
of which they peer with a near-sighted squint, as 



'ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 77 

their incredible heads swing slowly from side to 
side. A tinkling bell, in shape and tone like Swiss 
cow-bells, is attached to the halter on each side of 
the head, whilst a third is hung about the neck. 
The dun-coloured camels pad past me, fastened 
together by ropes in groups of from five to ten. 
Each group is escorted by a ragged driver, and 
has a huge bell — a foot or more high — -fastened 
to the leader's saddle, where, above the tinkling 
rhythm of halter bells, it booms and clangs. To 
caravans I have grown accustomed in Barbary, 
but there they are soundless; so this is the first 
time I have ever heard that music of the camel 
bells, which so deeply impressed the imagination 
of Sir Richard Burton. 

As we climb through mist and chill, group after 
group passes slowly by, with deliberate tread and 
a strange craning to right and left of their long 
curved necks, on which the head seems to sway 
like that of a monstrous serpent. Suddenly 
above the jangle of the caravan beside and below 
us, I catch the faint tinkling of more distant bells ; 
looking upward I can just perceive a ghostly line 
of camels moving vaguely through the mist on a 
loop in the road far above. For over half an 
hour they file past, accompanied by miserable 
drivers; their great bales rocking slowly, with 
here and there a tuft of white cotton bursting 
through the canvas. A more fantastic sight 
than this endless procession of over three hundred 
camels, linked in groups, slowly padding down 



78 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the mountain through snow and vapour, to the 
booming of brazen bells, would be difficult to 
conceive. It seems a version, curiously trans- 
posed to the Orient, of Goethe's: — 

"Kennst du den Berg ufid seinen Wolkensteg? 
Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen Weg : . . . 
Kennst du ihn wohl? — Dahin! Dahin 
Geht unser Weg!" 

Gradually the caravan draws to an end, passing 
indifferently by the body of a brother camel who 
died in his tracks ; until the entire train disappears 
in the mist, with a Russian soldier bringing up 
the rear. Then the sound of bells grows ever 
fainter, fading to an etherial echo that itself 
finally dies. After that, the only sounds are of 
wheels crunching through the snow, or of my 
drivers as they call or whistle to encourage their 
struggling horses; even these noises are deadened 
by the fog, which — only a few feet away — encloses 
us with wavering veils seemingly drawn to hide 
a world of mystery. 

By mid-afternoon, we have reached an altitude 
of some four thousand feet above Askabad. The 
mist now begins to lift, revealing hills draped 
with snow. Overhead a bright wanness appears, 
where the sun struggles to pierce the fog but only 
turns the vapour from grey to shining white. For 
one second, a faint line of blue appears through a 
rift in the drifting mist. At a little after four, we 
reach the Russian frontier — a series of enclosures 



Mm m- if ■ 



;^---l 




A Group of Bukhariats 




-W- 



I <r 




li 






^■^ ml 







Turksmen at a Station near Askabad 

(This photograph was taken while hiding behind the door of the railway carriage, as the use of 

a camera is strictly forbidden in Turkestan) 



vi 














Bajgiran at Sunrise 




A Persian Chai Khana, or Tea-House, Askabad to Masshad 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 79 

between walls of clay, with a few low whitewashed 
houses. Soldiers are standing about with long 
iron rods, used to prod carts and bales in search 
of contraband; finally the officials come out and 
take my passports to be inspected. My drivers 
go off for tea, and Aghajan to buy meat for to- 
night's meal, while I remain watching the dreary 
road. Several carriages pass by, filled with Per- 
sians and veiled women, all of whom peer at me 
even more curiously than I at them. At last my 
papers are returned and we are free to start. It is 
really a great relief to have crossed the frontier 
and know that, whatever trials I may encounter 
in Persia, at least I shall no longer be harrassed 
by the mediasval formalities of official Russia. 

The ascent becomes more arduous, as the road 
twists upward in sharper and more numerous 
loops, with clouds now hanging high enough to 
leave the hills visible (except for occasional rocky 
peaks) all white with snow. When we have al- 
most reached five thousand feet above our start- 
ing point, the road makes a sudden turn, and then 
plunges down with precipitous turns, affording 
a first glimpse of Persia spread out before me in 
a panorama of the most unusual beauty. Rosy 
clouds flaming over the summits, are what first 
catch the sight. Close at hand, the snowy ridge 
separating us from the northern slope just ascended, 
still catches all that is left of fog and clouds — long 
rows of blue-grey vapour fraying out at the upper 
edge, until they drift northward across the ridge, 



8o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

or else swirl upward in tongues that melt insensibly 
into the now darkening vaults of azure. Below 
me, the valley lies free from fog at the foot of hills 
greater and smaller, rising one above the other 
in rows powdered with snow. The highest range 
ends in peaks of serrated rock, in colour dun glazed 
with rose and flecked with multitudinous small 
spots of black. The swelling slopes of the lower 
hills are seamed by ridges and gullies, wrought 
by rain and snow descending through untold eons. 
Although without vegetation, they are not of 
rock but of loam, yellow turning to olive, acrid and 
metallic as though coated with mineral deposits. 
Snow remains in depressions or on more sheltered 
summits, its enamelled white contrasting with the 
sharp hues of the earth. In a hollow at the centre 
of this vast cirque of hills, Bajgiran nestles — an 
assemblage of one-storeyed houses built of clay 
the same colour as the hills. Far off across the 
valley, snow-peaks dominate the scene, jagged 
point towering above jagged point. Banks of 
aquamarine mist have been caught upon their 
bases, whence detached masses float upwards 
across the flanks, until they crown the summits, 
which the rays of a now invisible sun flush with 
pale but luminous tones of scarlet lake tinged with 
mauve and lavender. Words cannot depict these 
radiant summits, blazing as though rosy flame 
were thrown out from within; nor can they de- 
scribe how the entire landscape glitters, while the 
nearby mist curls northward and is lost in the 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 8i 

darkening sky. Casting her veils aside, Iran 
lies before me glowing in the rosy hue of the 
sunset.^ 

The carriages plunge rattling down the hill and 
around corners, until, on reaching the village at 
dusk, we turn into the muddy court of a caravan- 
serai. While waiting for my luggage to be un- 
loaded (since if left in the carriage overnight, 
everything would be stolen before dawn) the sky 
changes gradually. Near the horizon it grows 
violet, very deep yet so luminous the eye seems to 
see far through the purpling air, the which, as it 
mounts, turns sapphire strewn with the pale gold 
points of early stars. Here I see my first Persian 
costumes — very commonplace affairs indeed. A 
long under-garment, falling well below the knees, 
is so crossed as to leave a V-shaped space descend- 
ing from the shirt-band to the sash, which holds 
the clothes in place. Over this is worn an equally 
long coat, tightly fitted to the bust, but with full 
skirts gathered into large pleats at the back. The 
hats are high and shaped like melons, made either 
of black felt, or of blue cloth with silver lines and 
stars. The Persian's distinctive mark — two long 
locks — curl from under them out over the ears, 
the rest of the head being clean shaved. 

While standing in the court, I suddenly hear 
someone address me in French; looking round, I 

^ I record my impressions as they occurred ; but candour com- 
pells the admission that Persia never again offered me anything 
one half so lovely as this first illusion. 
6 



82 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

find that a well-dressed young Persian is inviting 
me to wait in the room he occupies. When he dis- 
covers that I speak English, he begins to use it eas- 
ily and correctly. He is a native of Mashhad, who 
has lived in Shanghai and is now, after a visit to 
his parents, on his way back to Manchester! He 
offers me sweets, and shows extreme courtesy in 
all his ways. Finally Aghajan finishes carrying 
the luggage into a bare but tolerably clean room, 
rather like an anchorite's cell, where Said pro- 
ceeds to set up my camp-bed, and adroitly make 
things as comfortable as possible. The samovar 
purchased at Askabad is soon lighted, and after a 
time Aghajan brings me the mutton bought at the 
frontier, decently cooked on a skewer. A hungry 
little dog shoves the door open with his nose, and 
shares my dinner. Later my young Persian, 
who with his travelling companions occupies the 
next room, sends to enquire if he may pay me a 
visit. He apologizes for not having asked me to 
wait in his room as soon as I arrived, excusing 
himself on the ground that he took me for a Rus- 
sian, and of course desired no intercourse with 
that race. He tells me that the Russians foment 
disturbances in Persia, in order to have pretexts 
for sending troops into the country; and dwells 
on the way they violated the sanctuary and killed 
Persians at Mashhad. He insists that all his 
fellow-countrymen hate Russia. His manners 
are remarkable, and his courteous proffer of 
service obviously sincere. When he leaves, all 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 83 

is still outside; through the broken panes of my 
single window, I see a hillside like a wall of white, 
its bare crest tracing a bar across the chill heavens 
a-glitter with stars. 

February 21!* 
At six o'clock, before the sun is up, it is bitterly 
cold in my room — there being no way to make a 
fire. The light increases slowly, until the sun 
brings in a brilliant day. My Persian acquaint- 
ance is on hand to bid me good-bye, and regret 
that he has not been able to do more for me. It is 
nearly eight o'clock when we drive away from 
Bajgiran, crouched among its yellow hills and 
towering peaks. On reaching the valley-end, 
the road begins winding sharply upward. At 
first the hills are bare, with only a few patches of 
snow; then it grows deeper. As sitting still in 
the carriage is chilly work, I walk briskly, invigor- 
ated by the clear cold and the glittering sunlight. 
The hills are mantled with snow and dotted with 
evergreens, when, on reaching a height of some six 
thousand feet above the sea, we begin a long de- 
scent into another valley. At the bottom we find 
a camel with a broken leg lying beside the road; 
a vermilion stream meanders through white snow, 
where the driver — after roping its head back — is 
trying to cut the poor brute's throat with a tiny 
pen-knife. As this means a lingering death after 
hours of agony, I cannot bear to leave the creature 
to its fate. Through Aghajan, I enquire if the 



84 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

driver would not like to have me save him trouble 
by shooting the camel; my proposition being 
refused, I next offer a rouble (to him a large sum) 
if he permits me to have the animal put out of its 
misery. When this has also been refused, I try 
to discover the man's motives. I am told that 
he wants to use the hide and does not wish it 
spoiled ; whereupon I suggest that a bullet-hole 
will injure it far less than hacking it with a pen- 
knife. Probably the real reason is that the man 
is a Muslim and wishes to eat the flesh, which a 
true-believer may not do, unless the animal has 
had its throat cut. This, however, has been done 
already, and I am determined to save the animal 
from torture; so I add threats — which I could 
never execute— to offers of money, and finally 
secure the obstinate Muhammadan's consent 
to a foreigner's folly. Then Said takes his pistol, 
and the poor writhing head falls motionless on 
the snow. 

The carriages have been waiting a short way up 
the road, which now ascends another mountain. 
I plunge along after them, through deep snow, 
until weary. At the top, a wonderful view is 
spread before us; we have halted on a long ridge, 
down whose slopes the road twists in giant loops. 
Directly opposite, a sheer wall of mountains rises, 
entirely covered with snow, except where a few 
blackish rocks pierce the white, or a row of ever- 
greens runs along the crest. Other hills heave up 
their dazzling white flanks, strewn with round and 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 85 

tapering evergreens, each one sharply detached 
in black against the snow. Far away, behind 
other ranges, a majestic chain glittering with 
snow, towers over all — its long spurs all running 
downward like glaciers. In the clear air they seem 
near at hand, yet in their aloofness most remote. 
As we descend, the hills we pass are almost bare 
of snow — rocky slopes of yellow touched with 
purple. The sky is pale but intensely blue, broken 
only where wisps of cloud catch on the mountain 
crests and then drift across, melting in the radiant 
air. A falcon poises in the vault above us, before 
swooping on outspread pinions; saucy magpies 
with green iridescence on black wings, flit from 
rock to rock, jauntily wagging their very long 
tails; flocks of pigeons wing down the valley 
below. A lark -like song floats upward from an 
unseen bird. 

After descending some seven hundred feet, we 
reach a relay about noon; just a stable and a 
chai khdna or tea-house — hovels built of dried 
clay. The four corners of the tea-house floor are 
occupied by terraces of dried earth, on which men 
can squat or sleep, leaving only a cruciform pass- 
age between them. I can see a rude oven in the 
dim light, only admitted through the door. Three 
shabby Persians are gathered around a samovar, 
drinking tiny glasses of tea, and also busy watch- 
ing me. After the least filthy of the platforms has 
been swept with a besom, I perch on the edge, 
whilst making a scanty lunch on provisions I 



86 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

fortunately brought with me. There is no doubt 
that in Persia, God helps him who helps himself, 
since no one else will. When we start, the road 
passes through a narrow gorge of tawny rock, 
where jagged teeth project in rows. Then the 
valley expands, and the road begins to wind 
across the level, between low pointed hills, some- 
times snow-tipped, sometimes almost bare. A 
stream wanders by, often choosing the roadway 
for its bed. We pass a few mud villages, a car- 
avanserai, and some fields enclosed by mud 
walls. There are rows of slender poplars here 
and there, with greenish white boles and fine 
branches all pointing upward, as though the 

whole tree were one gigantic bough The 

first carriage we have seen, is coming towards 
us. In Persia the rule of the road requires 
travellers to change post-horses when they cross, 
taking them back to the relay where they be- 
long; so we halt to exchange teams. It takes 
some ten minutes to adjust the assemblage of 
string and rotten leather that here passes as har- 
ness ; then we move along with our underfed and 
over-worked animals. 

The next relay is at Imam Quli ; — across a wide 
space, half road and half river, a fortified wall 
(like all Persia built of sun-dried clay) surrounds 
tiers of clay hovels, climbing an ochre hill streaked 
with snow. There are no windows to be seen; 
only a few houses have curious rows of holes, 
which make them look like dove-cotes. A round 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 87 

watch-tower stands at the highest point of the 
village ; two others are visible further down. The 
arches and fiat dome of a mosque show above the 
roofs. Everything in sight being built with dried 
clay, only their form distinguishes the buildings 
from the earth. Cows and camels stray across 
the road, where a few men idle in yellow leather 
overcoats called — I believe — pushtlns. The hum 
of strident voices and a child's occasional shout, 

float across from the village It is three 

o'clock when we leave, and the sun has begun 
to decline visibly. There were not enough horses, 
so we only have three to drag the carriage full of 
luggage. The road leads up a steep hillside with 
sharp bends, on which the snow often lies so deep, 
the poor horses can scarcely make the turn. At 
last we reach a wide plateau buried under a glit- 
tering expanse of snow, that undulates until 
barred by distant mountains. This table-land 
is itself so high, and the mountains so near, they 
seem, rather than mountains, dunes of ice, or 
waves of some cosmic sea congealed in the dawn 
when first our world began. Curiously enough 
they suggest motion, despite their solid immo- 
bility. Far behind, across the invisible valley 
which separates them from the plateau, the view 
is closed by lion-coloured peaks powdered with 
snow. The sun is now sinking toward these 
jagged crests, as it flings long shadows down 
their flanks. 

The poor horses have the utmost difficulty in 



88 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

dragging the carriages through the snow, in ruts 
often a foot or more deep. All of us — drivers, 
Aghajan, Said, and myself — plod along on foot, 
hauling our legs out of deep snow as best we can. 
It is pitiful to watch the horses straining, and see 
how their sides quiver and their legs tremble, 
whenever they are forced to stop — which is, at 
most, every hundred yards. Slowly we toil across 
the plain, the sun sinking swiftly all the while. 
The peaks ahead of us have begun to cast 
long shadows, creeping slowly toward us, whilst 
the hills behind grow rosy. Finally we reach the 
further side of the plateau, only to realise that the 
worst is yet before us. We must cross the chain 
of mountains that rear a wall before us, by a road 
ascending precipitously in four great loops. It 
is a horrid prospect and my heart aches for the 
horses, yet there is nothing to do but go on. They 
start up the purgatorial ascent, struggling on 
through deep snow a few yards at a time; then 
halt with harried nostrils, panting and steaming, 
— whilst I recall Blake's vision of the infernal 
cliffs up which Vergil and Dante clomb. Little 
by little they advance with real suffering, which 
fills me with distress and anxiety lest their strength 
fail before the top. 

When the poor beasts reach the final stretch, I 
walk ahead to the summit — over six thousand feet 
above sea level — where it is possible to look down 
both slopes. Ahead of me the sun has just touched 
the snowy crests, whose spreading flanks are al- 





i -t_ 



i 



iHsWiP 



-A 



-<ft»i«l»««fcfc«»\' ^««#«. ^< UimmjK », Jtl'*'' 




Imam Quli 




Late Afternoon on the Uplands above Imam Quli 
(The horses were so exhausted they had to rest every hundred yards) 




A Kabyle in Persia: Said in the Snow 




•k 



" A Lodging for a Night '' 
(.This is the room with jars for " The Forty Thieves " ) 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 89 

ready veiled by indigo shadows, except where the 
last rays still lie on the valley-edge. Looking 
backward, the sky directly over the mountains 
is faintly bluish green changing to lavender, which 
in turn melts into the deeper blues of the zenith. 
The amber hills flush, then gradually grow pale 
and lustreless, as the sun descends behind the 
snow mountains, which now fade from greenish 

white to dull grey The silence which lies 

upon these lonely hills shrouded in snow, is sud- 
denly broken by the creaking of a vehicle, climb- 
ing the slope I am waiting to descend. After a 
little, I can see the post- waggon moving slowly 
upward through the twilight. It is a rude un- 
covered affair, like a small hay-wain, filled with 
sacks of mail on which a few passengers are perched. 
When it reaches the top, I make signs for it to 
halt, since it cannot possibly pass my carriages 
further down, and there is no knowing what 
might have happened, had I not chanced to be 
here. Not hearing any sound from my horses, I 
start back — only to find one of the poor beasts 
off the road, floundering in snow up to his belly; 
while the four men cling desperately to the rear 
wheels, in order to keep the carriage from plung- 
ing down the precipitous mountain-side, and 
dashing to pieces at the bottom among mangled 
horses. Running back to the summit as quickly 
as the snow will permit, I send men and a horse 
from the post-waggon down to the rescue. They 
succeed in extricating my animal; then with the 



90 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

help of the extra horse and of much pushing at 
rear wheels, at last haul the two carriages to the 
top. It is not pleasant to think what my predica- 
ment might have been, had the post not arrived 
so opportunely. 

! It is six o'clock when we start down, so there is 
no hope of reaching Kuchan — my intended stop- 
ping place — to-night. Dusk now lies across the 
hills; as we move downward through a dim world 
of shadowy blue, the impression received is not 
so much of sunlight withdrawn, as of all life and 
light slowly dying. Darkness, cold, and solitude, 
on a snow-clad mountain crest ; it is a dreary almost 
sinister hour, recalling all the sorrows one may 
have ever known. As night falls, stars begin to 
peer from the darkling sky; whilst, without a 
light, we wind down what must be a road, 
swaying close to the invisible edge, over which 
we may at any moment crash. When the level 
is reached, we flounder through the darkness past 
two caravanserais, where camels resting on 
folded legs, are vaguely visible by the smoky 
light of fires, around which drivers huddle; then, 
after what seems hours, reach a relay where we 
are benighted. 

A more loathsome place in which to lodge, 
would be hard to find. After looking at various 
sties on different sides of a boggy court, each worse 
than the other, and then falling up a half wall, 
half stairway, in the dark, I chose the room where 
I am now writing, after it had been evacuated 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 91 

by a number of hags and bawling brats. It may- 
be ten by fifteen feet, with a dirt floor and a mud 
roof. Queer niches are scooped in clay walls 
black with soot. My camp-bed has been pitched 
as far as possible from the walls, and my luggage 
piled in a corner. Not daring to investigate the 
filth in dark corners, I huddle in the middle of the 
bed, realising how people used to feel when they 
"drew the skirts of their robes about them." 
The only light is that of candles brought with me, 
and a fire of green logs blazing on the primitive 
hearth. This fire may sound delightful, but is 
not, since it pours all its smoke into the room; 
I am shivering with cold in the midst of a thick 
and acrid fog, which chokes me and fills my eyes 
with rheum. At one end of this agreeable lodging 
I can just distinguish three enormous jars — pre- 
sumably for oil — so precisely like those in which 
"The Forty Thieves" were hid as to startle me 
with a sensation of meeting unexpectedly things 
known long ago. No food of any sort can be 
bought, borrowed, or stolen. The tins brought 
from Askabad — in dim prevision of what lay be- 
fore me — prove a horrid mess; so I am reduced 
to bread, and remnants of dates and chocolate, 
cheered by tea made in my precious samovar. 
The only thing between me and despair is a sense 
of humour, aided by Said's ungrumbling service 
and appreciation of the comic. Undressing is an 
impossibility in this sty, so there is nothing to do 
but go to bed fully clothed. 



92 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

February 22°'' 
About one o'clock last night, I was roused by 
the tinkling of camel-bells. 

"Behold, the driver has risen and made ready his files 
of camels, 

And begged us to acquit him of blame: why, O 
travellers, are you asleep? 

These sounds before and behind are the din of de- 
parture and of the camel-bells; 

With each moment a soul and a spirit is setting off 
into the Void." 

It must have been a large caravan, since it took 
a long time for the sound to pass and die. The 
road being at some distance, the jangling of bells 
was subdued to a plaintive rhythm — very strange 
to hear late at night when suddenly awakened in 
my hovel, with its AH Baba jars dimly visible in 
the wanness of fore-dawn. They are large enough 
to hold a man easily, and to see one emerge from 
them would scarcely have surprised me, so fitting 
would it have seemed. The night was bitterly 
cold, and even fully dressed, with rugs and coats 
piled over me, I had to pull the sheet over my 
benumbed head and draw up my knees, until I 
lay in a shivering ball that longed for home. 
After that I was twice wakened by voices calling 
a Husayn who appeared loath to rise, for which I 
could scarcely blame him. This name — com- 
memorating Karbala's martyr — shouted through 
the night, made me realise that at last I was really 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 93 

in the land of Shi'a, which books describe in so 
alluring a fashion. 

Poor Said could find no possible place in which 
to lodge, so was obliged to spend the entire night 
in one of the carriages, trying not to freeze to 
death. As the cold made sleep impossible, he lit 
the stump of a candle, fixed it on the opposite 
seat, and attempted to ward off insanity by study- 
ing his English grammar until one o'clock. I take 
my hat off to the resource, endurance, and good 
temper of Kabyles. 

My toilet, in the bitter greyness before sun-up, 
is hasty and summary. The coachmen are as 
usual late, and I begin to fear that Aghajan will 
be of little use in dealing with them. The carriage 
wheels have frozen to the ruts and have to be 
chopped out with an axe; so it is seven-thirty 
before we are able to start. After rattling down 
the turns of a hillside track, over whose edge it 
would at any moment be easy to slip, we come in 
sight of a wide plain covered with snow, stretching 
away until it touches a mighty range of snow 
mountains, congealed in one vast agitation of 
white. This chain is really divided into two, of 
which the more remote is so pallid and of so shim- 
mering a blue-white as to seem vision rather than 
reality. Taking our way across the plain, we find 
it interspersed with long stretches of mud, growing 
more and more numerous as the snow melts and 
then disappears, — which makes me realise the 
true meaning of those lines : 



94 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

"Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face 
^Lighting a little hour or two." 

There is no such thing as a road, just a collection 
of ruts — at first frozen, then extremely boggy — 
which wander in desultory fashion across the level 
groimd. The carriage sinks deep, creaking and 
swaying with the jerky pull of the exhausted horses 
Every few minutes, it seems as though the ram- 
shackle vehicle must fall in pieces, or a poor horse 
succumb. So detestable a carriage-way I have 
never seen before, and should like never to see 
again; — but I fear Persia has many similar 
surprises for unsuspecting travellers. 

From time to time we pass through villages 
with windowless houses of sun-dried clay, so low 
and small they appear a child's plaything. On 
the corners of terraced roofs, white dogs bask in 
the sun and then leap to their feet, barking angrily 
as we rattle past; while a few long-robed men 
lounge about, with their blue mitre-like bonnets 
pushed off their shaven foreheads. Now we are 
overtaking a string of camels and fourgons — as the 
rude waggons are here called — laden with sugar- 
bales and oil-tins. They are escorted by Persian 
soldiers, mounted and heavily armed, one of whom 
wears a complete cuirass of six rows of cartridges. 
It appears that the convoy has been caught while 
attempting to smuggle ammunition, which is 
contraband in Persia; and is now being led to 
judgment and probably confiscation. A little 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 95 

after eleven o'clock we arrive at Kuchan, having 
covered only three and a halifarsakhs. The farsakh 
is a measure, devised to torture travellers who 
venture into Persia. It is supposed to represent 
the distance a loaded mule can travel in one hour, 
and is generally considered the equivalent of four 
English miles. In reality, it varies wilfully be- 
tween three and six or seven miles. Whenever 
the driver has — through his interpreter — assured 
the weary traveller he has only a "little 
farsakh'' to go, he may be certain that his goal 
lies miles away. In fact, the word has already 
grown so hateful, the mere sound of it now plunges 
me in nightmares to which the labours of Tantalus 
seem light. 

Kuchan is still a considerable place, outside 
whose walls a mighty sovereign was, in the eigh- 
teenth century, slain by his own soldiers; — that 
Nadir Quli Khan known as Nadir Shah, who from 
a robber-chief grew to be lord of Persia ; a resistless 
conqueror memorable as the man who swept across 
the East, sacked imperial Delhi, and carried off 
the untold treasure of the Great Moghal, only to 
end his reign in ferocious excess, and fall by an 
assassin's stroke while besieging an obscure town 

in Khurasan I have decided to stay the 

night here, though it is not yet mid-day; not out 
of admiration for Nadir Shah, but simply because 
I am not willing, in my soiled and weary condition, 
to risk another lodging like last night's. Com- 
pared with that, I am housed in a palace; this 



96 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

means that I have secured, and made Aghajan 
sweep, a small empty room with sooty walls once 
whitewashed. It boasts a stove, that may perhaps 
smoke a little less than the so-called fire-places. 
A rickety table has been produced, whose dirt is 
hidden by a piece of red cotton bought at a nearby 
shop. This splendid room looks out on a sodden 
courtyard but mildly odoriferous, where a few 
battered carriages are standing; cows and sheep 
stroll about placidly, and dogs fly yelping from 
the vindictive onslaughts of a small boy. Over 
the mud walls, two clumps of green-gold poplars 
stand out against the sky of tender blue, above 
which a few nacre-tinted clouds drift slowly. In 
the portico outside my room, a small Persian child 
is peeking at me, while two adolescents are walk- 
ing up and down, trying to appear unconcerned, 
but really eager to watch the firangl with all his 
queer belongings. A Russian soldier has just 
strolled into the manury courtyard, and several 
more are in the streets outside. 

The town — which is fairly large — comprises 
two principal streets, intersecting in the maiddn 
or square, where a market is being held at present. 
These streets are lined by booths protected by a 
continuous shed carried on wooden poles. Here I 
see for the first time those turbans of vivid grass- 
green, which the Shi'ite followers of *Ali affect. 
Many of the men have a curiously ferocious air, 
thanks to their extraordinary beards dyed rust- 
red with henna. The natural colour, black or 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 97 

dirty grey, generally shows in lines of varying 
width, where the hair has grown out since last dyed, 
giving the wearer a most unkempt appearance. 
These flaming beards suggest Herodes Antipas, 
and a barbaric artificiality strangely out of keep- 
ing with the shabby Persians of to-day. The 
inhabitants of Kuchan also wear socks elaborately 
woven in flowered patterns, that make their feet 
conspicuous when they walk away in heelless 
slippers. Most of the shops are devoted to the 
sale of sweets, and have sticks of spar-like sugar- 
candy in huge bowls awaiting customers. Another 
speciality is wheat bread — the only kind known 
in Persia — baked in enormous cakes no thicker 
than a knife-blade, and full of bulby inequalities, 
looking rather like huge pancakes much under- 
cooked. They are exposed for sale on dirty rugs 
thrown over inclined planes near the ovens. I 
ate some of this bread for the first time at 
luncheon, and found it not unpalatable. At street 
corners, vendors are seated beside large bowls 
filled with a thick brew of rice or flour, surrounded 
by spoons and smaller bowls set on trays to tempt 
the hungry. At both ends of the main street 
there are glimpses of snow-mountains, which relieve 
the sordidness of this shabby town. 

Strolling through Kuchan, I find myself haunted 
by Thackeray's disillusioned phrase: "We arrive 
at places now, but we travel no more." To be 
well-informed has certainly its disadvantage, in 
so much as it destroys that element of surprise 
7 



98 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

which must have given to travel in old days a zest 
we moderns shall never know. We have read 
and heard so much about foreign parts, photo- 
graphs and illustrations have depicted their 
peculiarities so accurately, that when we suddenly 
find ourselves face to face with reality — however 
remote — it has lost its novelty. All this ineluct- 
ably exposes us to a disillusion, from which only 
a few of the world's most perfect shrines are still 
exempt. Walking up and down the streets of 
this dreary town, the general effect really does 
not differ from that of similar places in other lands ; 
while the characteristic and to me novel details 
seem a matter of course, so familiar have books 
and pictures made them. Alas! no country can 
ever compare with that land which great writers 
depict ; and the endeavour to see the reality behind 
the glorious image evoked by their magic is no 
doubt a folly. I am certain that Nishapur will 
never stir me as does the collocation of its name 
in: — 

"Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, 
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run. ..." 

To add to this vague discontent, a troop of some 
fifty Russian soldiers rides down the street. Their 
presence angers me in a place where they have no 
right other than that of brute force ; yet this senti- 
ment is futile, since this is only an instance of the 
law that the strong shall devour the weak, which, 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 99 

from microbes to men, rules the ravening universe 
created by all-merciful Providence. 



February 23^^ 
At seven o'clock I am ready to leave, but there 
is no sign of the carriages ordered to be ready at 
this hour. My peerless henchman, Aghajan, has 
about as much vigour as a piece of boiled macaroni 
set on end ; no amount of threats and scolding can 
instill into him enough courage to cope with those 
impossible animals called, in Persia, drivers. After 
gazing down the empty street for a fretful half- 
hour, I make it so unpleasant that he prefers to 
go in search of the carriages, which finally appear 
at eight o'clock. The road is the same kind of bog 
through which we toiled yesterday — exhausting 
to the horses, and very shattering to the nerves of 
would-be travellers. We are still crossing a desert, 
between hills rising sharply into mountains. The 
road gradually improves and snow begins to 
disappear, the plain changing from brown to dove- 
colour as the earth grows dryer. At last clouds 
of dust rise and are blown forward from the 
wheels. At half-past eleven we reach the relay, 
having made only four of those weary farsakhs 
which begin to haunt me, just as those dreadful 
parasangs — of which they are the modern equiva- 
lent — used to do in the days of the Anabasis. 
I find Russian soldiers in possession of the caravan- 
serai, and have to make my luncheon of hard- 



100 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

boiled eggs and Persian bread in one of the rooms 
they occupy. Two horsemen and another car- 
riage having arrived, I make my first acquaintance 
with one of those disputes which render traveling 
post in Persia so exciting and exhausting an occu- 
pation. The drivers wish to make me wait, while 
they feed and rest the horses I have already used, 
instead of giving me those which were in the stable 
when I arrived. The howling shrill-voiced row 
which ensues, no words can describe. After 
looking on for some time, I am forced to join in 
with the most threatening manner I know how 
to assume, — telling Aghajan to lead the horses 
out himself, whilst I prevent anyone from inter- 
fering. As all the travellers hereabout are covered 
with cartridge-belts, and carry bulging pistols or 
long guns slung across their shoulders, it seems 
advisable to change my own pistol from pocket 
to pocket, so the mob of bellicose drivers may see 
that I too am armed. Finally my shouts so 
encourage the quivering Aghajan that he makes 
an attempt to lead the horses out and harness 
them. This decides matters; the battle having 
lasted long enough to feed and water the horses 
that arrived after I did, they are now led out and 
harnessed to the luggage carriage. 

These four white beasts — with a saffron strip 
around their necks and the mark of a hand dipped 
in henna on each crupper — prove sturdier than 
the average sorry jade, short as their rest has been. 
The country is now a dry desert, across which I can 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD loi 

see a mirage of water, with two islands and black 
objects that might be taken for boats. A num- 
ber of foiu'gons — one of them with gay-coloured 
curtains — rumble by, and occasionally a horseman 
also passes. Villages grow more numerous; each 
one fortified by mud walls, often with flanking 
towers, and always with huge gateways dominating 
all. Bare trees, generally pale brassy poplars, clus- 
ter outside and within the walls. The earth, look- 
ing as though it might once have been ploughed, 
is patterned by little runnels made for irrigation. 
To the left, the hills clutch the plain with toe- 
like spurs, then rise in rufous cliffs free from snow, 
which is only visible on the higher peaks peering 
over hill-crests. On the right, snow still streaks 
the hills and mantles the mountains far behind. 
Towards sundown we pass villages closely grouped ; 
in this tender light the fawn-coloured walls and 
fine tracery of trees, as well as the pale mountains 
heaving up toward the delicately tinted sky, 
acquire a fugitive charm they did not possess at 
noon. 

Shortly after sunset, while the last light is fad- 
ing quickly, we reach our resting-place at Shimran. 
Here the road lies between an enormous fortified 
enclosure with five towers on each side — built in 
old days to protect caravans against robber bands 
— and a giant caravanserai, whitewashed and two- 
storied, a veritable palace. Here I find a small 
but, for Persia, very clean room, with white walls 
and a brick floor, giving on the terrace which roofs 



102 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the lower story. At the edge there is no railing 
to prevent one's pitching down to the courtyard 
below, and in my room there is a second door 
opening directly on a black void, where poplar 
tops are just discernible; heedless movements 
are therefore inadvisable. The fire-place of 
course collects all the smoke and then belches it 
steadily into my cell. Winter travellers in Persia 
soon become so expert at breathing smoke, no 
fire can ever again alarm them. The much kicked 
and beaten dogs — whose j^^elping fills the cara- 
vanserai — have climbed the winding stairs, and 
are now peering timorously through the crack in 
my door. Receiving encouragement, they drag in 
their emaciated bodies, slinking into the comers, 
but gradually grow bold enough to take scraps 
and bones from my hand. 

February 24*^ 
The drivers, having been ordered for six o'clock, 
manage to appear at seven, and we start at seven- 
thirty — the hour I had fixed in my mind, which is 
an improvement on yesterday. On waking, the 
sky was clear, but a heavy mist soon gathered, 
enclosing us in shrouds of white, and silvering 
the ground with rime. Before long, however, as 
it burns away, the air grows almost hot. Meeting 
an on-coming carriage, we are forced to exchange 
one of our teams for theirs, receiving only three 
horses in return for four. They are, however, 
the first healthy-looking beasts I have seen, and 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 103 

drive along heartily. At the next relay there are 
no horses at all, so we have to wait an hour to 
rest and feed the poor creatures we brought with 
us; during which time I make my anchorite's 
lunch in a corner of the court, in the company of 
frizzle-feathered hens. The road leads on mono- 
tonously through the same dreary plain, but there 
are more indications of life, even once or twice 
men engaged in tilling the ground. At last the 
first signs of Mashhad appear: over a screen of 
poplar-trees, a golden dome and a larger one of 
turquoise blue beside a slender minaret, probably 
the celebrated shrine of Imam Rid a. As we draw 
near, one of the city gates appears; a large arch, 
crowned by two tall pepper-pots coated with 
diversely coloured tiles, is squeezed between two 
squat but swelling towers. Instead of entering 
here, we drive along the walls built of dried clay 
with scalloped tops, interrupted by buttress- 
towers at regular intervals; innumerable crows 
are holding assemblies on the fortifications, or 
flying away in sable clouds. These crumbling 
dust-coloured walls, advancing and retreating 
at various angles, with their lace-like edges fes- 
tooned with crows, are highly picturesque. We 
finally enter by another gate, also adorned by 
several of those elongated pepper-pots which 
seem so popular here. We then wind through 
the town in search of the Bank, passing between 
walls of baked brick faintly umber colour; there 
are long stretches without houses, just walls en- 



I04 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

closing a property; but even among the shops the 
streets are, for such a place, rather clean. We 
are given conflicting directions, and only discover 
the Bank after driving through the covered bazars, 
and twice turning around with much difficulty. 
Here they courteously give me a farrdsh to show 
the way to the "hotel." When I first heard the 
word farrdsh applied to an ordinary attendant in 
livery, my sensations were curious, as hitherto it 
had suggested only the "dark Ferrash" of 'Umar's 
verse. This fellow is dark, but not all ominous 
or romantic; nor can he strike my tent, since to 
my great regret I do not own one, and must there- 
fore let him guide me to a lodging. The "hotel" 
— with a sign Cafe d'Honneur over its tiny door — • 
proves to be but little better than a roadside 
caravanserai. The proprietor asks an exorbitant 
price for wretched rooms ; but since no bargaining 
will bring him down, and no other place of lodging 
can be found, I am forced to accept his robber's 
terms. Just after getting as decently settled as 
circumstances will permit, I discover the opening 
of a noisome drain directly below my window; 
all I can do is to pray that bacilli and noxious 
gases may prefer the courtyard to my room. 
Near at hand is the main square of Mashhad; a 
large open space surrounded by low buildings of 
brick with occasional ornaments in tile-mosaic, 
its centre occupied by a modern band-stand, while 
the walls of a ruinous fortress dominate one corner. 
A number of Persians are strolling about listening 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 105 

to a band, wearing the small round black hats of 
the country, but otherwise dressed in European 
clothes, often in frock-coats — since any skirtless 
garment is here considered immodest. All this 
gives the ancient town a vague air of shoddy 
modernity. 

February 25*^ 
An overcast day. My first visit is to the 
bazars. They are vaulted by domes of brick, 
with circular apertures, strengthened here and 
there by cross-beams on which rows of pigeons 
perch. There are no gorgeous costumes as in 
Bukhara, nor anything really curious; yet I find 
these bazars more diverting than those in 
Turkestan — perhaps because I expected nothing. 
The things which attract attention are: a strange 
kind of bread like fans of coral, rather sweet and 
pleasant to taste; small red chickens made of 
sweetmeats, exposed for sale on the ends of straws; 
and men making Persian hats. At the rear of the 
shop a man cards and beats the wool, while others 
roll disks of wool in a white paste, in order to 
stiffen them enough to mould them into shape. 
Most of the wares are obviously of Russian manu- 
facture, but the carpets are the best I have so far 
seen. At one point there is a glimpse of the Shah's 
Mosque, ruinous and with only a few tiles left, 
but still picturesque. Suddenly I come upon a 
chain stretched across the bazar; beyond this no 
foreigner is allowed to pass since Russian troops 



io6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

violated the shrine of Imam Rida, the most sacred 
spot in all Persia. The truth about such an oc- 
currence is difficult to ascertain anywhere, but 
in the East doubly so ; however, there seems little 
reason to doubt that the whole affair was pre- 
arranged by Russian authority, with a view to 
terrorising the inhabitants. It is believed that 
the Russian Consul deliberately persuaded men to 
take hast or sanctuary, an immemorial privilege 
of Persian shrines ; then when the mullas in charge 
of the shrine refused to violate the right of sanc- 
tuary by handing the men over to the Russian 
officials, it was bombarded and entered by Russian 
soldiers acting under orders. The Russians deny 
having looted the sanctuary; yet the largest of 
the sacred pictures was, to my own knowledge, 
afterward offered for sale in Tihran, bought, and 
sent on its way back to Mashhad, through the 
munificence of a foreign, but not a Russian, official. 
Whether or not this be the true story, the bom- 
bardment of the shrine has caused the Russians 
to be cordially hated ; and neither it nor the hang- 
ing of the mullas at Tabriz, will ever be forgiven 
by Persians. 

As there is no hope of getting nearer to the 
shrine, I persuade a farrdsh to show me the way 
to caravanserai-roofs where views are to be had. 
From the first, I see the frontal wall and turquoise 
dome of a nearby mosque, with the minarets and 
gilded dome of the shrine visible in the distance. 
Then he leads me by circuitous ways to a roof 




The Gates of Masshad 




The Shrine of Imam Rida, Masshad 

All unbelievers are forbidden access, but the sanctuary has been bombarded and 

violated by Russian troops 



*«N *: 




The Citadel of Tus 
This was the birth- and burial-place of Firdowsi 





The First but not the Last Time We Stuck in the Mud 
Masshad to Nishapur 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD to; 

close to the sanctuary. At my feet a narrow 
street, thronged with people, leads between rows 
of booths to a tiled archway, in front of which 
two long strips of dark blue linen, belonging to 
some dyer's shop, depend like banners. Past 
this point no foreigner was ever allowed to go. 
Beyond the gateway a broad avenue, also densely 
crowded, reaches to the entrance of the shrine. 
I can also see a great fagade — like those at Samar- 
qand — decorated with tile-mosaics, the main 
archway being surmounted by a small wooden 
structure with a sloping roof and arched openings, 
where objects like lamps are hanging. To right 
and left are slender minarets, crowned with over- 
hanging cages such as must formerly have existed 
on the mosques in Turkestan. To the left and 
at right angles with this fagade, the back of another 
is visible, with the golden cupola of the sanctuary 
glittering above it even in this sullen light. Still 
another f agade is visible further off, with the blue 
dome of the mosque I have just seen, in the far 
distance. 

On my way back, I chance upon a scene from 
the Arabian Nights: — escorted by shabby soldiers 
with rifles and fixed bayonets, three vendors 
caught thieving or with false weights, are parading 
the bazars, holding their wares on trays, and with 
large paper placards, covered with Persian script, 
pinned on their breasts. A little further on, an 
amused or indifferent crowd has collected around 
a poor creature in a fit, that forces him into a 



io8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

series of contortions like an acrobat's; as horrid 
a sight as ever I hope to see. The women of 
Mashhad are enveloped from head to foot in black 
mantles, and wear white face-veils, put on over the 
mantle and held in place by two strings fastened 
by a gold brooch at the back of the head. These 
veils have two pieces of drawn-work directly over 
the eyes, and are pulled in at the bottom under 
the mantle edges, until they look like bibs. These 
sable females resemble nothing so much as crows 
hopping along with tails dragging on the ground. 

Before returning to the hotel, I stop to 

leave my letter of introduction to the Persian 
General; he is very civil and wishes to present me 
to the Governor of Mashhad, a royal prince, one 
of the innumerable descendants of the prolific 
Path 'All Shah. On stopping to pay my respects 
at the British Consulate General, I find to my 
surprise that the Consul has heard of my intended 
visit to Mashhad from friends in London, and has, 
on learning of my arrival, already sent me an 
invitation to stay with him. With what alacrity 
I accept his courteous offer, is easy to imagine. 



February 26*^ 
About six o'clock last evening, after donning a 
ceremonial frock-coat and the opera-hat which is 
the best imitation of a top-hat I can supply, I 
walked to the corner of the square, feeling thor- 
oughly ridiculous. Here the Governor's carriage, 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 109 

drawn by a pair of fast horses and escorted by two 
cavalry-men, was waiting to dash with me across 
the square to the entrance of the fortress. There 
an attendant, only half- visible in the dark, lead 
me through a tortuous succession of unlighted 
corridors, where sentinels stationed at intervals 
saluted by banging the butts of their guns on the 
ground so suddenly they made me jump. After 
crossing a court and passing through a large room 
quite bare except for a carpet, I found the Gov- 
ernor sitting cross-legged on the floor of a smaller 
room. He is a very small old man, with a droop- 
ing moustache and those falling corners of the 
mouth which so often give a dubious expression 
to Persian faces. He wore a small Persian bonnet, 
but a European frock-coat and trousers with 
white socks, his shoes having of course been re- 
moved before entering the house. This cleanly 
custom, so at variance with Oriental indifference 
to dirt in general, makes a man feel that to wear 
boots within doors is really the untidy habit of 
barbarians. When I entered, the Governor rose 
to receive me, and — my friend the General acting 
as interpreter, since the Prince speaks no French — 
made one of those embroidered speeches that are 
indispensable in the Orient. I endeavoured to 
make my replies as flowered as possible, which 
was the easier as I was speaking French. We 
then sat around a small table set with cakes and 
cigarettes, where tea was first served and then 
small cups of most delicious coffee flavoured with 



no MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

rose. The room was lighted by two European 
lamps standing on the floor, and by candlesticks 
with glass shades placed on the table. While tea 
was in progress the Governor smoked a wonderful 
qalyun — as the Persian water pipe is called — that 
was brought in and placed on a stand beside him. 
This pipe must have been four or five feet high, 
with a gold bowl studded with turquoises. It was 
taken out to be refilled and brought back several 
times, the Governor each time making a loud 
bubbly noise as he smoked. When he first took 
an arm-chair, he kept his feet on the floor, but 
when the qalyun arrived, drew them up under him, 
sitting cross-legged like an Eastern potentate on 
his throne. The commander of the troops came 
in a little later — a young man speaking excellent 
French, who has lived ten years in St. Petersburg 
and speaks Russian, doubtless an ardent pro- 
Russian, since there are some even in Persia. 
He very kindly offered me horses and an escort for 
the excursion to Tus. The manners of everyone 
were exquisite, but the whole scene was a peculiar 
mixture of neglect and ceremonial distinction, not 
without its dignity. 

After my audience was at an end, I returned to 
the British Consulate, whither my kit had in the 
meantime been transferred. The Consul is a 
member of the Indian Political Service, a gentle- 
man of the old school, who combines the learning of 
a savant with the experience of a soldier. He has 
a wife and daughter, whose charm and skill render 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD in 

the remote Consulate as attractive as a home in 
England. The unstinted hospitality and perfect 
naturalness of the entire family make a stranger 
feel perfectly at ease before an hour has passed. 
To meet such people would be a privilege in any 
part of the world ; to be received in their delightful 
home after days on the roads of Khurasan, is a 
sensation none can appreciate but those who 

have wandered in the East 

To-day the skies are still threatening. From 
the window of my room in the Consulate, I can 
see — above the compound wall and the trees 
beyond — the blue dome of the mosque between 
its two slender minarets. About ten o'clock, word 
comes that the horses which the Commander has 
so courteously placed at my disposal, have just 
arrived. I find that he has sent his own superb 
stallion and a horse for my good-for-nothing yet 
indispensable interpreter, Aghajan, also two cav- 
alrymen with shaggy Turkoman bonnets, and a 
suwar, or soldier, armed with a gun slung over his 
shoulder. We therefore form quite a prancing 
cavalcade, when I start to visit all that Mongol 
hordes and the son of Timur Lang have left of Tus 
— a great city that rose in the reign of Kay Khus- 
raw (the half-mythical King whose name will 
stir all lovers of *Umar Fitzgerald), but would 
probably have been long forgotten, did not fame 
recall it as the birth-place of Persia's great epic 
poet Firdawsi. Riding through the muddy streets 
and out into the level country, the weather begins 



112 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

to lighten. The clouds, however, still rest on 
the hills, to-day subtly shaded expanses of blue 
and purple. At the left, the niountains are metal- 
lic and blackish, with unglittering snow-caps — 
like hard white enamel — lost in the clouds above. 
Outside the mud- walled villages, poplars form a 
wavering hedge with their stems of green-gold, 
like the funeral masks found at Mycenae, or like 
brass that has grown green with neglect and 
rain. 

After an exhilarating gallop of two hours across 
the plain, the ruined mausoleum at Tus comes 
into sight, and a half -hour later we reach the waste 
that was once so great a city. Dismounting to 
photograph the bridge, my stallion — held by one 
of the Turkomen — begins to neigh ferociously 
and let fly at the other horse, which the owner is 
forced to abandon. My beast continues to neigh 
and plunge wildly, while the other dashes off pur- 
sued by the rest of the escort, until finally captured 
with some difficulty. Mounting again after this 
little incident, I cross the Kashaf Rud — or Tor- 
toise Stream — by the very bridge Firdawsl's much 
wandering feet must have often trod, as his eyes 
rested on the mountain-tops I can still see to- 
day before and behind me. Beside the arches of 
this bridge — says legend — the precious caravan, 
bearing gifts of indigo from the repentant "mighty 
Mahmud, Allah breathing Lord" of Ghazni, en- 
countered the funeral procession bearing to rest 
all that was left of the poet, now^ grown insensible 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 113 

to all the wealth and honours of the world. Pass- 
ing through the Rudbar Gate — called the " Indigo" 
in memory of this — that is to-day nothing more 
than a breach in the low mounds to which the 
ancient walls have crumbled, the mausoleum, 
erroneously called the Tomb of Firdawsl, looms 
across the barren plain before me. It is a square 
building, domed and with great arches, now stripped 
of all decoration; just bare walls of golden-brown 
brick, ribbed by the vertical strips and bHnd 
arches once encrusted with multi-coloured mosaic. 
Inside, the dome is pierced by an opening, through 
which the clouds can be seen scudding in wool- 
packs across that other "inverted bowl, the 
sky." 

I am writing stretched on the ground in shade 
flung by its ruinous walls. All around me stretches 
the fawn-coloured plain, striped with pale green 
where the tender shoots of young wheat begin to 
pierce the earth. Far away to the left the mount- 
ains rise, ashen-grey, until the snow just shows 
below banks of clouds, capping their summits and 
casting shade far down their flanks. In front of 
me is a distant line of mud walls, and on a small 
eminence a few shattered towers, presumably the 
"Elephant Stables." Further off, a row of pop- 
lars extends to a dust-coloured village, near which 
other trees create a hazy mass of greys and browns 
tipped with red. Behind all, the jagged hills, 
dove-coloured and dappled with moving shadows 
of soft grey and blue cast by drifting clouds. 



114 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

For a moment the sun shines brightly, then hesi- 
tates and half withdraws. Not a human being 
is in sight, but sheep are grazing silently not far 
off. The only sounds the ear can catch, are the 
rustling of wind and the sweet twittering of larks 
hidden in the fields; occasionally the sharp neigh 
of stallions rings out above the music of wind and 
bird. Nothing remains but walls of crumbled 
earth and a half-tilled plain; yet here there once 
stood a great city where Firdawsi lived and wrote 
deathless verse. Here too the mystic, Alghazali, 
evolved his subtle meditation. Their eyes must 
often have viewed these same mountains, to-day 
almost unchanged; then, as now, clouds must have 
banked on the ridge and thrown fleeting shadows 
across hills and plain. No trace remains of poet 
or metaphysician — nothing but desolation; yet 
they are not wholly dead, since a thousand years 
after their mortal flesh passed hence to corruption, 
their names still live, thrilling a traveller come from 
far lands, hidden beyond unsailed seas until long 
centuries after they went down to death. No! 
"oblivion has them not"; yet none the less in 
spots such as this, the thought that all the uni- 
verse is simply one vast cemetery, and history 
no more than a necrology, strikes us even more 
forcibly than ever it did Taine in Pisa's Campo 
Santo. 

Riding across to the mound of ruins, that was 
once the citadel of Tus, I find a moat still partially 
filled with water, surrounding an embankment, 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 115 

which a second moat separates from the eminence 
where the fortress proper used to stand, — now 
only a frittered stretch of earth and wall at each 
corner of an enclosure, strewn with stone and only 
accessible where a causeway joins it to the ram- 
part. After gazing for a few moments, half 
sadly, across the waste spread before me, I ride 
back past the mausoleum to a primitive tea-house, 
where I am now lunching on sandwiches and a 

fragrant apple which the suwdr gave me 

Lying here on a mound of earth, looking out over 
the fields of Tus, some fantastic chain of thought 
calls to mind the portrait of Goethe, reclining on 
classic fragments in august contemplation of the 
Roman Campagna. How wonderful life must be 
to one possessed of even the hundredth part of his 
genius and beauty, above all, of a tithe of the 

serenity he finally attained A sudden 

cawing sound, as hundreds of crows fly past, rising 
and falling like an evil grain tossed by the sowers. 
Far away the only visible object is the mausoleum, 
but little deeper yellow than the dusty plain. 
The clouds have settled, half hiding the hills — • 
now a solid expanse of pale blue fading into vapour, 
that in spots almost touches the earth with its 
white and rainy wisps. Above me the sun still 
shines, but a black shadow is creeping swiftly 
toward me across the barren plain, where the 
swift- wheeling crows have just begun to settle on 
what once was Tus. Wind moving and the twit- 
tering of birds weave a melodious spell, in which 



ii6 MOSCOW TO THE PERvSIAN GULF 

peace and melancholy are so closely mingled they 
can hardly be distinguished. 

On returning I find a crowd outside the gates 
of Mashhad, grouped beside the road or on the 
muddy talus, waiting to see some notability arrive 
from Tihran. The efTect is like a neglected minia- 
ture painted under Shah 'Abbas, with all its beau- 
tiful colours soiled and faded. The broad avenue 
within the gates, is divided in two by a slimy 
stream of brown-green water. Enormous chinar 
■ — or plane-trees — grow on the banks, with large 
boughs of scaling white, from whose twigs fuzzy 
brown balls still dangle. The great size and pic- 
turesquely contorted limbs of these trees are de- 
lightful; when in foliage they must really beautify 
this, at present, very sordid street. Shops line 
both sides, built like all Mashhad with dove- 
coloured brick and plaster, and for the most part 
of one storey. Long strips of cloth in dark colours 
— chiefly blue — hang from trees or poles, festoon- 
ing the road in front of dye-shops. Over-loaded 
mules and donkeys trot along patiently, and a few 
camels amble past. Men stroll up and down; 
children play in the dirt; women hop along bird- 
fashion, or squat by the walls in groups of three 
or four, with their face-bibs conspicuous, and oc- 
casionally a glassy eye, surrounded by 3^ellow 
wrinkles, visible where some hag is so old she 
wears no veil, merely drawing her mantle across 
the face. In the narrower streets, men are con- 
tinually popping out of sight down rectangular 



ASKABAD TO MASHHAD 117 

openings near the walls, as though diving into 
treasure-houses. A closer inspection proves them 
to be merely descending narrow stairs to fill their 
vessels with fetid water from small tanks at the 
foot of each flight. 



Ill 

MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 



119 



Ill 

MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 

February 28*.^ 
Last night by invitation, I accompanied the 
Consul to a fancy-drCvSs ball, given by the Rus- 
sian officers in a badminton-court covered with 
carpets. It seemed a strange experience in so 
remote a spot, but was rendered pleasant by 
the courtesy and hospitality of our hosts. The 
Russian Consul is a very tall man, looking like 
a portrait by El Greco, with an abnormally long 
beard that falls to his waist, and waves every time 
he speaks, in a manner that quite hypnotised 
me. Local gossip insists that when travelling, 
it is wrapped in a blue satin bag; it also credits 
the Consul with being entirely responsible for the 
bombardment of the sacred shrine Rus- 
sians — at least in Asia — are spy-mad. As soon as 
I had been presented, the Consul put me through 
a series of questions, obviously intended to dis- 
cover who I really was, and for what hidden 
purpose I had come to Mashhad. It was impos- 
sible to resist a malicious impulse to talk about 
an imaginary American desire to find outlets for 



122 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

superfluous manufactures, and an equally imagi- 
nary American interest in the development of 
Persia. This seemed to produce its effect, for I 
noted that each strand of the endless beard 
quivered with more than its wonted wave. As 
the Russian Vice-Consul had spent the greater 
part of his time at dinner the night before, in 
what he considered adroitly concealed endeavours 
to "pump" one of the guests about me; there is a 
probability that I figure as a highly suspicious 
person in a secret report forwarded to Imperial 
Government at St. Petersburg. 

This morning the sky is so threatening I can 
hardly make up my mind to start on my long jour- 
ney, particularly as I am loath to leave the gracious 
hospitality of the British Consulate; however, 
after much hesitation, I decide to do so. Since 
even such sorry carriages as brought me from Aska- 
bad, are scarce and cost a small fortune for the 
trip from Mashhad to Tihran; I finally hired an 
extraordinary old waggon rather like an omnibus, 
with springs that look as though they might with- 
stand travel on what Persians call roads. The 
renting of these vehicles and the arrangements for 
horses are vaguely connected with Government; 
when I had selected my ark, and recovered from 
the shock which the price fi.xed by official tariff 
gave me, long documents in fine Persian char- 
acters had to be drawn up, and duly signed by 
me and sealed by the postal authorities. My 
ignorance of the Persian language obliged me to 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 123 

accept the worthless word of Aghajan in regard 
to the nature of this document; so I sympathise 
with those who, in mediseval times, travelled with 
letters they could not read, which purported to 
secure them preferment, but might, on delivery, 
prove orders to slay the bearer. This mysterious 
agreement was of course only delivered into my 
hands when I had acceded to the official's request 
for a gratification. — I am beginning to suspect 
that in Persia the Shah himself might accept a 
tip, and feel certain that the mutual pursuit of 
"presents" will in time establish such sympathy 
between the Persians and their Russian suzerains 
as should annihilate all animosities. 

The spectacular conveyance that is to carry 
me six hundred miles across Khurasan to the 
capital of Persia, still shows a few signs of its 
quondam coat of paint. It has a long bench 
running the length of each side, three windows on 
a side, and a roof equipped with a gallery for 
luggage. The sashes, which rattle in the warped 
frames, are guiltless of glass, so the vehicle is open 
to wind and rain. On hiring it, I stipulated that 
it should be washed, after removing several inches 
of dried mud, and also be furnished with some 
means of keeping out rain. On arriving this 
morning, it was resplendent with two pieces of 
striped red muslin nailed down over all the win- 
dows, so that air and outlook could only be had 
through the door. As I finally managed to have 
these curtains rolled up, the carriage is now less 



124 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

like a prison-van. It takes a long while to bring 
my luggage out, dispose it on the roof, cover it in 
against rain, and rope it in place. My expe- 
rienced guide is naturally incapable of doing this, 
all the work being done by my invaluable Said. 
By the time we lumber away from the gates of 
the hospitable Consulate, it is eight o'clock; for, 
in this country, the traveller rises before dawn 
to await the plea.sure of his drivers as meekly as 
he is able. The benches are covered with seats 
of a most superior red velvet, and I have had extra 
cushions made in the bazar, so it is possible to lie 
comfortably stretched at half length, as we rumble 
along like gypsies in their cart. 

A last view of Mashhad, the turquoise dome of 
the mosque and the gilded cupola of the shrine 
with its minarets, visible above the clay walls and 
crumbled towers surrounding the town; then the 
road begins to rise more and more steeply, up 
the last spur of the range we skirted on the way 
from Shimran. After climbing eight hundred 
feet above Mashhad our troubles begin, when at 
eleven o'clock the carriage sticks in the mud near 
the top of a steep hill, or — to be accurate — the 
horses refuse to drag it further. They are har- 
nessed in an idiotic manner which prevents all four 
pulling at once; they also kick violently when 
whipped, but refuse to work. A number of passers- 
by decline to lend a hand even when offered money ; 
a feeble old man is the only one eager to help. 
The driver dances about like a hundred-limbed 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 125 

demon, shouting, beating his horses, and jerking 
their bridles; Said and Aghajan — the latter very 
feebly — tug at the rear wheels; but all is of no 
avail. Finally some men willing to be of service, 
come in sight and, after unloading the luggage, 
carry it to the top of the hill. The horses — really 
quite able beasts — then consent to budge, and at 
last reach the top. When the kit has been roped 
on the roof once more, and we have gone a scant 
half-mile, the carriage proceeds to stick fast on 
another hill ! After a series of struggles, the driver 
jumps on one of the animals and drives off to the 
relay in search of extra horses. To pass the time, 
I lunch in the carriage, and then sit on a rock by 
the roadside, looking down the valley and reading 
Morier's inimitable tale, Ilaji Baha of Ispahan. 
The nature and customs of the Persians seem 
unchanged since the days when the brilliant 
Englishman wrote his great picaresque novel ; the 
only difference is that the picturesque has now 
disappeared. The delights of Haji Baba beguile 
the time, until the coachman returns with two 
new horses and a diminutive driver, whose enor- 
mous bonnet of shaggy fur makes him look like 
a Fiji Islander. After changing two horses and 
unsuccessfully attempting to start, I insist, much 
against the drivers' will, that a fifth horse shall 
be harnessed to the pole in front of the others. 
Despite a laying on of whips, and a succession of 
yells from the drivers worthy of a band of canni- 
bals, the carriage remains steadfast, while the 



126 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

lead-horse nearly kicks the others — not to mention 
the men — into pieces. I am therefore reluctantly- 
forced to let them work with only four horses in 
their own foolish fashion; after a long struggle 
they drag the old omnibus out of the ruts, only to 
stick fast a third time at two o'clock. The view 
of the hill-slopes sinking down to the plain dappled 
with cloud shadows, has no interest for me now, 
and my irritation is intense. However, we succeed 
in extricating ourselves, and at last reach the 
relay. 

As there is a sharp ascent immediately ahead, I 
insist on being given the six horses which I rightly 
maintained were necessary on leaving this morn- 
ing. We quickly climb to some seventeen hundred 
feet above Mashhad, then — after alternately de- 
scending and rising through wild and barren 
country — reach a crest whence a great plain is 
visible, stretching away to snow mountains. The 
road pitches down suddenly, bringing us to Sha- 
rlfabad about five o'clock. I was told that there 
were decent caravanserais on this route, but find 
a vile place here. A sombre passage, ankle-deep 
with red mud, leads to a mucky court where a 
few poplars are growing. On one side is a series 
of small rooms — the walls black with smoke, 
the wall-niches filled with cigarette ashes, burnt 
matches, and other oddments, and the floors 
covered by rugs shiny with the grease and filth 
of generations. Of course there is absolutely 
no furniture in any caravanserai in Persia; the 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 127 

traveller must carry everything he needs with 
him. Luckily I had a foreboding of conditions 
before I started; but even so, have not half the 
things I require. To add to the charms of my 
dwelling, the other side of the court is occupied 
by natives, whose habits I shall leave to the im- 
agination. 

March i^.* 
" Philanimaly " appears to be as unwise as 
philanthropy in these parts. Last night the glitter 
of a cat's green eyes remained fixed at a crack in 
my tumble-down doors, until I politely invited 
her in and gave her scraps from what passed for a 
dinner. She has most felinely repaid me by steal- 
ing to-day's lunch! Aghajan secured a great 
prize in the shape of a miniature leg of mutton, 
which when cooked was placed for safety on a 
high ledge above the fire-place in Said's room, 
whence the truly Persian pussy carried it off this 
morning. Said has only just discovered the theft 
and come to tell me of it. His usually rather im- 
passive face is a study fit for a painter. How the 
cat managed to get a piece of meat as large as 
herself out into the court and over a wall eight or. 
ten feet high, is so much beyond me, I cannot 
really begrudge her the prize. When I leave, she 
is seated on the wall above the courtyard door, 
her paws demurely folded under her, smiling like 
Alice's Cheshire Cat — a picture of silent triumph. 
Beyond Sharlfabad the road rises abruptly; 



128 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

but six horses and a tolerably intelligent driver 
prevent a repetition of yesterday's happenings. 
The sun is warm and bright. At the first relay 
there is one of the ancient fortified caravanserais, 
probably built under the magnificent Shah "Abbas, 
who caused them to be erected along the principal 
routes of trade; — a large brick building around a 
court, with a curiously vaulted chamber that must 
have been used as a stable. From here the road 
ascends sharply through a cleft in the clay hills, 
only to descend once more to the plain, which now 
widens out until — as we skirt the northern range — 
the mountains on the other side seem remote and 
faintly blue-white against the sky, where the wind 
is shepherding round pearly clouds. These moun- 
tains rise abruptly from the plain, apparently 
clutching it with paw-like formations. The lower 
slopes, devoid of vegetation and ribbed like sand- 
dunes, are metallic, ranging from grey through 
brown to greenish yellow, with here and there 
sanguine spurs. Higher up, the snow lies like a 
white mantle flung across the summits. Banks 
of cloud rest on the peaks or drift slowly past, 
hiding the sun at intervals, and casting huge 
shadows that wander solemnly across the plain. 
Villages are visible here and there; often perched 
on top of a foot-hill, but always fortified by walls 
and towers. Men are tillmg the ground with 
primitive wooden ploughs, which — I am sure — - 
differ but little from those in use when Darius 
fled the triumph of Iskandar, 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 129 

About three o'clock Qadamgah comes into 
sight; a spot renowned because the Imam Rida 
here met a stone, which rolled out from the pre- 
cincts of the fire-worshippers, beseeching him to 
free it from the agonies of the damned. The 
saint obligingly stepped upon it; legend does not 
relate whether or not this solaced the soul-stone, 
but does affirm that the sacred foot-prints re- 
mained indelible, and that — when the relic had 
in after years been lost — the Imam informed 
Shah 'Abbas of its whereabouts in a vision. Such 
interruptions to the eternal beatitude of Paradise, 
arising from terrestial solicitude, must be trying 
even to saints, and were perhaps devised to keep 
them in training. According to Shi'ite tradition, 
this same Imam is still obliged to travel to Qum 
by air every Thursday, in order to spend the day 

with his beatified sister, Fatima The 

dome which Shah 'Abbas kindly built over the 
recovered relic is the first thing to catch the eye. 
The town is situated on the two low hills of buff- 
coloured earth, which enclose a narrow valley 
running back toward the mountains. On the 
easternmost and ruddier of the two, nothing is 
visible except the jagged remains of a shattered 
tower standing at each corner. The other hill 
is surmounted by a town, fortified with walls and 
swelling towers of sun-dried clay, the same colour 
as the hillside ; it looks like a turreted crown on the 
brow of Cybele. Little houses of mud crowd down 
the lower slopes of both hills, and across the valley- 



130 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

mouth. A snow-peak serenely rises above the 
twin hills, dominating the entire scene with its 
placid grandeur. To right and left, the snowy 
outlines of other mountains sweep away. 

The mosque is built on level ground in front of 
the valley inside an enclosure, above whose sombre 
boughs the blue dome glitters with reflected light. 
To the left a fawn-coloured portal stands out 
against the green-white limbs of a lofty chindr 
tree. A hush overhangs the scene, only broken 
by the caw of circling crows and the cries of chil- 
dren playing far ofi by the hill-top walls. Going 
nearer, I slip through a postern into the walled 
garden around the mosque, half afraid lest I offend 
and be ejected; but no one is in sight. In 
the centre is an octagonal building encrusted with 
tiles— mainly blue. A circular drum supports a 
dome nobly shaped; its turquoise-coloured tiling 
is patterned with twisted lines of white, and dia- 
monds of mingled black, white, and yellow. A 
long tuft of greyish grass grows near the top — like 
plumes on a helmet. Everywhere lofty pines 
spread their long boughs above shaggy trunks 
slanting eastward. These rugged trees are said 
to have been brought from the far-off Himalayas 
by pilgrims, four centuries since. Chindr trees 
mingle their scaling limbs with the pines, and 
shrubs — now bare — abound. Down the centre 
of the brick pathway in front of the mosque, a 
stream of water runs through a channel, until it 
leaps to a lower terrace, passes through a large 




The Mosque of Qadamgah 




Qadamgah 




The Dyers' Gate, Nishapur 





Entrance to the Governor's House, Nishapur 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 131 

basin, and leaves the enclosure. Looking upward, 
the snow mountains seem to peer across the plain 
through the rustling pines, while the walled village 
looks directly down from the hills. The sun is 
bright but languid, and peace is everywhere — born 
of soughing wind, the music of running water, 
and the distant sound of birds calling in cadence: 
''Sweet, sweet, sweet." It is my first view of a 
Persian garden, amid whose mingled neglect and 
care I would lief linger. 

Outside the entrance is a broad terrace, below 
which the ground descends in a series of terraces, 
where the water runs in channels and through 
basins. On a small platform beside the largest 
of these, two immense chindrs stand as if guarding 
the portal. 

There is the usual excitement about horses and 
harness, producing the usual delay. We finally 
start, with an extra horse tied behind in case of 
need, and an extra driver escorting us ofi horseback. 
The extra horse soon breaks loose and gallops 
homeward ; he has to be pursued and brought back 

— too fatigued to be of any use As the 

sun begins to sink, two horsemen ride furiously 
toward us, making signs. Remembering stories 
of attacks along this road, Said and I have our 
pistols ready ; but they prove to be a peaceful escort 
sent to meet me by the Governor of Nishapur, on 
receipt of a letter from his uncle, the Governor of 
Mashhad. They gallop along beside or before 
us, whirling their guns in a rude fantasia. 



132 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

The sun having dipped behind the hills, the 
snow mountains begin to flush like roses, then 
gradually acquire a glaze of lavender that pales 
with the waning hght. The walls of Nishapur 
soon come into sight: high battlements of dried 
earth now empurpled by the sunset. On reaching 
the city, we drive round the walls and towers, 
coldly radiant in this purple light, beetling above 
us across an empty moat, and enter the Dyer's 
Gate. At the post-house, I find it is so late the 
Governor's servant thought I was not coming and 
went away a few moments ago, after leaving a 
message. I therefore mount a horse belonging 
to one of the escort, and at nightfall ride as best 
I can on a Persian saddle, whip in hand, through 
the bazars of Nishapur. On reaching the out- 
skirts of the town, we enter a poplar alley, above 
whose feathery tops : 

"Yon rising Moon that looks for us again," 

swings up the sk}^ still lucent with the last glow 
of expiring day. The lane is blocked by the dark 
outline of a large house. At the gateway a servant 
is waiting, but neither much calling nor loud 
knocking at the barred door brings anyone to 
open for us. Here I am in 'Umar's city, stand- 
ing between day and night amid the now nearly 
gathered darkness, watching how: 

"The little Moon look'd in that all were seeking;" 
and minded to cry out — if only I knew Persian : 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 133 

"... Open then the Door! 
You know how little while we have to stay, 
And, once departed, may return no more." 

Finally footsteps ring out through a paved 
passageway, and the great doors swing open. 
After walking through the gate and up a flight of 
brick stairs, I find myself on a terrace overlooking 
a garden filled with what appear to be the ghosts 
of poplar trees, illumined by a moon which forces 
me to muse with an appositeness almost startling : — 

"How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; 
How oft hereafter rising look for us 
Through this same Garden — and for one in vain!" 



March 2"^^ 
Last night I was ushered into a large room over 
the gateway, with fine carpets on the floor, and 
on a long table in the centre. A number of quiet 
servants made the fire and drew the curtains, 
whilst Aghajan went off to the post-house to fetch 
Said and what luggage I needed. About an hour 
later — after his visit had been fore-announced — 
the Governor arrived, preceded by a servant carry- 
ing a lighted candle. He is a pleasant and ex- 
tremely courteous young man — I should think 
about twenty-seven years old — who speaks French, 
but with much difficulty. He immediately enquired 
at what hour I should like to dine; it was then 
about eight and I very hungry. But, remembering 



134 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

I had heard that Persians dined about eleven 
o'clock at night, I only ventured say: — whenever 
his servants were ready. After a considerable 
time, the table was covered with a great number 
of small dishes : raw eggs, small cold baked potatoes, 
peeled pomegranates, nuts, bread, most — a favour- 
ite Persian dish of curds, in this case deliciously 
flavoured with an herb like estragon; and many 
similar appetizers. These I imagined to be hors- 
d'ceuvres, but when — after eating a little and wait- 
ing a long while — nothing else was brought, I 
decided that this was dinner and fell to once more. 
A full hour passed in laborious conversation; the 
Governor telling me how unhappy all Persians 
were on account of the interference in their affairs 
of the Great Powers, and more particularly of 
Russia; and also how he longed to travel outside 
his own country, the which his uncle — the Gover- 
nor of Mashhad and head of the family — would 
not permit. About this there was something 
almost pathetic, as his face wore an expression 
of natural intelligence stupefied by inaction and 
isolation. His hands were incessantly busy with 
one of those strings of beads which Persians carry, 
not like rosaries for religious use, but merely to 
occupy the hands. At first I addressed him as 
Voire Excellence, but saw — when he wrote his 
name for me — that he too was a royal descendant 
of Fath 'All Shah; whereupon I employed Voire 
Altesse so emphatically and frequently, no irrita- 
tion — if already felt — could remain. To my dis- 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 135 

may, the servants reappeared at eleven o'clock 
and cleared the table, then covered it with a linen 
cloth. They next cut the fiat Persian bread into 
strips, which they laid along the edges of the table; 
after this they brought in enough dinner for a 
regiment. There were two dishes of everything, 
one for the Governor and one for me, certainly 
forty all told; enormous platters of pilaw — the 
Persian national dish of rice — variously prepared, 
a kind of kidney stew, potato cakes fried after 
being dipped in egg and sprinkled with rice, a 
stew of meat and spinach, in a folded flap of bread, 
more spinach, in a second, bits of meat, a won- 
derful bowl of curds and parsley, bowls of most, 
and at each corner of the table chopped parsley 
with a piece of butter in the centre. All these 
and many more were placed on the table at once, 
to be eaten as whim suggested. In my honour 
there were plates and forks, a highly European 
innovation. The Governor helped himself to 
the dishes before him, and I — watching with the 
corner of an anxious eye — did likewise, manfully 
trying to forget that I had already made a meal. 
The Prophet's inhibition did not prevent my host 
from drinking some excellent Russian cordials. 
The servants were numerous and wonderfully 
silent, but our dinner was accompanied by the 
howling of a jackal wandering outside Nishapur 
in search of food. It was past midnight when 
the Governor withdrew. 

This morning I can see that my room overlooks 



136 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

both the street and a large garden, which might — 
like most Persian gardens — more properly be 
called a grove, since it is entirely planted with 
trees. With one exception the windows have 
solid wooden shutters, so that, if closed, no one 
can see out. The garden is only visible when I 
step out on the terrace; now it is dreary and un- 
kempt, but must — with its great alleys — be deli- 
cious in spring and summer. The sun is shining 
brightly when I ride off to visit the Tomb of 'Umar 
Khayyam. The Governor has sent me a beauti- 
ful grey stallion, which to ride is a pleasure; and 
my escort of five is led by the chief-steward, a 
wonderful old fellow looking as though he had 
just stepped out of an ancient tale. We ride the 
length of the bazars, — where my escort shoves 
mules and men aside to let me pass, and where 
sun-rays drop to the ground in a slanting sheet 
striped with black and gold, — then leave the city 
behind. On either hand of the plain, snow-peaks 
shimmer in the sun; those on the further side 
with bases merged in mist, until the summits of 
faint white seem to float above the horizon like 
icebergs seen across an ocean. Mounds of earth 
dot the plain, — all that is left of the various cities 
built successively, only to be razed by some con- 
quering lord. To us Nishapur suggests only 'Umar 
Khayyam, but to Persians his name means little. 
He was an orthodox Sunnite, a sect the Shi'ites 
hate bitterly, cursing their khalifs to this day; 
and was in Persian but a mediocre poet, whose 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 137 

verses at least one educated Persian claims to 
have been so vastly beautified by the genius of 
Fitzgerald, as scarcely to be recognisable. The 
city has, however, been the dwelling of noted men, 
among them several of those enigmatic Sufi poets, 
whose mystic creed finds so noble an expression 
in the lines of Jami that occupy my memory, 
riding over the plain toward the tomb of a great 
Sufi— Faridu'd-Din' Attar: 

"0 Thou, whose memory quickens lovers' souls, 
Whose fount of joy renews the lover's tongue. 
Thy shadow falls across the world, and they 
Bow down to it ; and of the rich in beauty 
Thou art the riches that make lovers mad. 
Not till Thy secret beauty through the cheek 
Of Laila smite does she inflame Majniin, 
And not till Thou have sugar'd Shirin's lip 
The hearts of those two lovers fill with blood. 
For lov'd and lover are not but by Thee, 
Nor beauty ; mortal beauty but the veil 
Thy heavenly hides behind, and from itself 
Feeds, and our hearts yearn after as a bride 
That glances past us veil'd — but even so 
As none the beauty from the veil may know. 
How long wilt Thou continue thus the world 
To cozen with the phantom of a veil 
From which Thou only peepest? — Time it is 
To unfold Thy perfect beauty. I would be 
Thy lover, and Thine only — I, mine eyes 
Seal'd in the light of Thee to all but Thee, 
Yea, in the revelation of Thyself 
Self -lost, and conscience-quit of good and evil. 



138 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Thou movest under all the forms of truth, 
Under the forms of all created things; 
Look whence I will, still nothing I discern 
But Thee in all the universe." 



The tomb of the famous Sheykh 'Attar lies in 
a barren plain, inside an enclosure of cream- 
coloured brick; a small octagonal building also of 
brick, surmounted by a cupola. It contains only 
a vaulted chamber, in whose center stands a white 
plaster-covered block with a beautifully wrought 
inscription. On the tomb lies a loose leaf in- 
scribed with verses from the Qur'an. Here in the 
midst of desolation, is the abandoned tomb of 
him who filled half Asia with his fame. It is 
curious to reflect that there is perhaps truth in the 
tradition which relates how here in Nishapur the 
aged Sufi, by whose forgotten dust I am standing, 
encountered a little child, Jalalu'd-Din Rumi 
(afterwards to become the greatest of all mystic 
poets) and gave the boy a copy of a work of 
his own, prophesying that Jalalu'd-Din's celebrity 
would later arouse the world. 

Galloping away across little streams and dried 
fields, we reach the Mosque of Imam Zada-i- 
Mahruq, where lies what once was 'Umar. At the 
rear of a walled garden, the mosque stands — its 
blue dome spangled with tricoloured diamonds. 
An avenue of narband trees, with an empty tank in 
the centre, leads from the portal to a broad terrace 
in front of the mosque. 'Umar is buried in the 




"^^.l ■' 



A Servant with the Governor of Nishapur's Falcon 




The Governor of Nishapur's Head-Servant 







Mosque of Imam Zada-i-Mahruq, Nishapur 
Umar Khayyam is buried in the central niche of the left wing, where the slab stands 




The Grave of ' Umar Khayyam. Nishapur 
The black object on the slab of brick and plaster is a dirty brick cast by a passer-by 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 139 

centre one of three open niches, forming the left 
wing. His grave is marked by a low slab, built 
like the niches of brick, and like them roughly 
coated with plaster scaling off in spots. There is 
no inscription; no stone bears so much as his 
name; no "cypress-slender minister of wine" pours 
libations to his thirsty dust ; no roses drop on his 
tomb, where in place of a bough some passer-by 
has cast a dirty brick. The walls of the niche 
are scrawled over with drawings and verses — 
undoubtedly ribald; for the tendency of good-for- 
nothings is here stimulated by the tradition that 
*Umar was not a strict Muslim, or was at best 
but an orthodox Sunnite. His burial-place has 
therefore alwa3^s been treated with disrespect. 

Is it not a part of the mockery usually meted 
out by that master ironist — fate, that he who 
prayed for foliage beside his grave, should lie in 
a sordid niche of brick and plaster, defiled by 
inept vulgarity? Sitting on the steps beside 
'Umar's tomb, a realisation of how all things de- 
ride us, and a consciousness of the coarse indiffer- 
ence of mankind, steal over me. Before me, the 
neglected garden stretches, its bare boughs only 
interrupted by the olive globe of a single pine; 
far away over the tree-tops, the great white moun- 
tains are sharply outlined against a sky of pale 
cobalt, where shreds of cloud hang motionless. 
These noble peaks are the only beautiful thing 
there is to see, and them the grave of 'Umar faces; 
so at least he is spared the ugliness of burial in 



140 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

cities. His dust — now mingled with the general 
earth — looks out toward that sky, 

"Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die," 

in sight of the white majesty of hills, over which 
his living gaze must often admiringly have wan- 
dered. A green-turbaned Persian is seated on the 
terrace-edge watching me, whilst two men are at 
work near the mosque door, and the cries of my 
escort outside the walls, ring out above the call 
of birds. In spring verdure must make this garden 
lovely; but cannot even then grace the pencil- 
defiled niche which shelters the poet for whom we 
dreamed an alabaster slab, carved over with fine 
Arabic script : — a grave in the midst of grass imder 
swaying rose-bushes, in a garden where running 
water makes a music that is yet a silence, so a 
listening ear almost perceives the sound of rose- 
leaves, fluttering down to touch that earth in 
which lies — enriching their roots — the dust of 
him who in life loved them so, he entwined their 
name in his verse — until to-day none who love 
them can dissociate their perfume and 'Umar's 
quatrains. He does indeed lie by a garden-side, 
but one no longer "not unfrequented"; perhaps 
in summer "the blowing rose" grows underneath 
the then leafy trees, and a stray petal may drift 
over the terrace wall, settling on his neglected 
tomb; even so it can scarcely atone for such 
unworthy surroundings. Here poetry, which 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 141 

sometimes haunts ruin and abandon, can only 
droop in sight of this sordid wall. 

The man who [whether mystic or misbeliever] 
cried centuries ago — 

"... My buried Ashes such a snare 
Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air 
As not a True-believer passing by 
But shall be overtaken unaware;" 

lies in a grave where the only green thing is a tiny 
weed, which I pluck from a crack in the brick wall 
beside his wordless slab. Is there not perhaps 
a yet subtler irony in the fact that what a man 
longed for in the physical world, is granted him in 
a figurative sense, which, however noble, is still 
derisive? 'Umar's bones lie without bush or vine 
to shade them; but his soul has flung into the 
world "such a snare of vintage," as has caught 
and curled round all poetry's true-believers; and 
in their hearts they have reared over his memory 
shrines where roses blossom, so fair earth's love- 
liest are weeds beside them. In the minds of men, 
"the rose of his remembrance" knows no autumn, 
throughout a world greater than any 'Umar ever 
conceived in the wildest of his wine-flushed 
dreams. So, could he decide, he might prefer to 
the letter of his wish, these super-sensual bowers 

where his undying spirit forever wanders 

After luncheon the Governor pays me another 
visit, taking me into the garden for a walk and 
tea. He is a lover of hawking and very proud 



142 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of his falcons. In response to my enquiries he 
sends for three of his retainers, who appear-- 
each with a splendid bird of prey perched on his 
gloved fist. They are sinewy birds; lithe, quiet, 
and very cruel-looking, the largest of the three with 
tiny bells about his legs and an ornament around 
his neck. 

March y^ 
We finally succeeded in leaving Nishapur at 
eight o'clock, after struggles even greater than 
those I have learned to think unavoidable in 
Persia. Yesterday the Governor's chief -steward 
would not permit Aghajan to buy anything for 
a lunch to be carried with me, insisting that he 
would provide all I needed. As the men had re- 
ceived their tips last night, neither servants nor 
luncheon appeared this morning. After waiting 
a full half -hour, I gave it up and started off on foot 
to overtake Aghajan, who had gone ahead to the 
post-house with the luggage. On arriving, I 
found him seated on the roof of the omnibus 
contemplating the luggage ; not a horse was visible, 
although — before leaving the house — he had as- 
sured me they were waiting. So I scolded him 
with all possible asperity, and sent him back to 
see if he could discover my Tantalian luncheon. 
As no one showed any signs of bringing out the 
horses, the usually quiet Said at last grew angry 
enough to speak to the driver in French, and make 
signs to him to fetch the horses. This producing 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 143 

no effect, I decided to try the methods I had often 
heard were necessary in the East. First I pushed 
one of the drivers violently toward the stable ; then 
— this being ineffectual — seized him by the scruff of 
the neck, shook him soundly, and flung him toward 
the door. Still no result; so I proceeded to ad- 
minister two vigorous kicks to that portion of the 
anatomy provided by nature for the purpose. 
About this time another driver brought out the 
horses, and Aghajan slunk back without the lunch. 
We then started, and — after immediately break- 
ing a whiffletree — finally succeeded in getting 
under way. 

The horses in Persia are wretched beyond words 
to describe; poor tired beasts, covered with galls 
and often blind in one eye, whose tortured exist- 
ence makes travel unendurable. The traveller 
is impotent to alleviate their suffering; if he will 
not start with them, he has to wait hours, only 
to watch the next carriage take the poor animal 
his pity has refused. Neither words nor example 
can awake humanity in owners and drivers. Once 
when I discovered, between relays, that the collar 
of one of the team was pressing the skin back from 
an immense wound in rolls, — the. driver replied 
to my angry remonstrance, that it was all right 
inasmuch as the horse was in that condition before 
we started! The harness is an inconceivable 
collection of frayed rope and rotten bits of leather, 
which falls apart and has to be tied up continually. 
The drivers — about the most debased specimens 



144 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

I have ever beheld — have no idea of harnessing 
their horses in such a way as to get the most use 
from them; and can only make the poor jades 
move at all by a ceaseless whipping and yelling, 
which sickens the traveller. Even when they 
can be persuaded to take extra horses, in view 
of the impossible condition of the roads, nothing 
can make them use all the horses at once. They 
drive four of them abreast, as hard and long as 
possible, while a second driver gallops beside 
the carriage on the extra horse; then half way up 
a steep hill, when the team is quite exhausted, 
they harness the fifth horse beside the others, 
where he is of small use. 

Before leaving Nishapur the Governor offered 
me an escort, which I declined as it is unneces- 
sary on this part of the road, and only a nuisance. 
Nevertheless some two hours after leaving, a 
solitary suwdr overtakes us, and two more fall 
in at the second relay. The road grows steadily 
worse. Ahead of us is a muddy stream with an 
abrupt bank on either side, bordered by a bog in 
which the driver sinks up to his knees. It looks 
as though the carriage must stick fast in the 
middle; but after we have all got out, the coach- 
man manages to take it across safely — while I 
watch with my heart in my mouth. He then 
leads the horses back for us to ride across, and — 
after reharnessing — starts on once more. The 
day is still overcast and the scenery desolate; 
a morose and barren expanse of greenish plain, 




View from the Grave of ' Umar Khayyam, Nishapur 
A garden-side no longer " not unfrequented " 




h 
''If 




Where ' Umar Khayyam is Buried 
The Mosque of Imam Zada-i-Mahruq, Nishapur 





^m. ^ \v 



"fe, 








'|>^ ' 



wtef^- •■ -^ 



A Road in Khurasan 
The post-master's carriage stuck in a foot of mud 



fcf^^' 




What Happens to a Carriage when the Horses Try to Drag it out of the Mud 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 145 

strewn with boulders and dotted with dried shrubs. 
In the distance it turns dull purple, stretching 
before us — a waveless sea from which a long ridge 
of olive-black emerges like a dinosaur's back. 
Far away the light filters through a grey pall, 
falling on snow mountains whose ghastly pallor 
only intensifies the dreariness. All day we ad- 
vance slowly, through this depressing country, 
which recalls all the forlorn wastes that writers 
ever described. About five o'clock, when we are 
just ending our last stage, another suwdr gallops 
up; this seems to me a little too much, so I shall 
cut his tip to the vanishing point. 

We have now reached Ribat-i-Za'faranI — the 
Saffron Guardhouse; so-called from the colour of 
the great caravanserai built under Shah 'Abbas; 
I cannot, however, see that the brick differs from 
that in the other serais dotted along the road. 
The old caravanserai is more or less abandoned — 
too filthy even for Persians, so I am lodged in a 
smaller modern building. In a comer of the 
courtyard a woman is baking bread, that is to 
say laying flaps of dough on the inner side of 
an immense earthen jar surrounded by a rough 
furnace. A friendly donkey is watching the 
proceedings. A little way off, is a curious conical 
building made of clay in huge steps, so that it looks 
like a magnified bee-hive. By appearances it ought 
to be a mausoleum, but on inspection proves a 
receptacle for storing frozen snow brought from 
the mountains. 



146 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

March 4*^ 
A disagreeable day, with a fine drizzle that 
turns to rain shortly after leaving. About eleven 
o'clock Sabzawar comes into sight; a large town 
with walls, above which a few tree-tops show, 
preceded by a collection of mad hovels and a 
number of small mosque-like buildings of brick, 
half in ruin. After entering the gate, we drive 
to the post-house on the other side of the city, 
through the bazars — a series of high arcades of 
yellow brick, each v/ith an opening for light in 
the centre. They are cleaner than any I have seen 
in Persia, and the lofty proportions of their almost 
Gothic arches, lend them a certain elegance. The 
wares for sale are of course largely Russian, but 
for some reason look less trashy than usual ; indeed 
the whole bazar has a livelier and neater air than 
those of Mashhad or Nishapur, yet seems more 
truly Oriental. There are no costumes to compare 
with the brilliant ones of Bukhara, which in re- 
trospect seem finer than they did in reality. Here 
the prevailing tone is a ruddy brown; but the 
vivid greens, so frequently worn in girdles and tur- 
bans, make spots of beautiful colour which liven 
the scene. One man has a ruby-coloured turban, 
and a well-grown boy, sitting in front of a shop 
at stately ease, is dressed in a splendid robe of 
amethyst velvet. 

The rain is falling fast, spattering through the 
eyes of the bazar cupolas, when I start out to visit 
the Governor (a son-in-law and — I believe — a 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 147 

nephew of the Governor of Mashhad) whom I 
was advised to see in regard to taking an armed 
escort for the part of the road just ahead of us. 
It is considered dangerous on account of raids 
by marauding Turkomen, whose activities Russia 
is supposed to stimulate in order to secure pretexts 
for interference in Persia. Turning to the left 
of the main bazars, we pass through a short street 
into a dilapidated square, dominated by the ruins 
of a once imposing fortress of clay-brick, whose 
walls and towers have crumbled, until it looks 
not unlike the ruins of a m.edieeval castle in France. 
The Governor's house is reached by a door at one 
side of this square; after crossing a shabby court 
and climbing a narrow twisting staircase, I find my- 
self in a sort of ante-chamber ; after a few moments 
I am ushered — under a lifted curtain — into a 
small room entirely carpeted with rather good 
rugs. In one corner, near the windows occupying 
the whole of one side, an elderly man is seated on 
the floor, Persian fashion, on his heels. A very 
beautiful small carpet is hanging on the wall 
behind him; in front of him the floor is littered 
with writing materials and official papers, near 
which an elderly man with a dyed red beard is 
sitting. The Governor is a tall elderly man, with 
long features and a two days' growth of grizzled 
beard. In addition to the flat Persian cap and 
the inevitable European frock-coat, he is wearing 
a brown mantle thrown across his shoulders. His 
appearance and manners are not without dignity. 



148 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

The only furniture in the room is a small stove 
and six chairs ranged along the wall, one of which 
is advanced for my use. In this carpeted room 
among unshod people, I find our dirty custom of 
wearing muddy boots in the house quite embar- 
rassing. 

As the Governor can speak only three or four 
words of French, I am forced to summon Aghajan 
to interpret. We then go through the process of 
having our words interpreted, while we smile and 
bow to each other like a pair of china mandarins. 
It appears that the Governor received a telegram 
from the British Consul announcing my arrival, 
but took an Austrian travelling on foot for me, 
and gave him an escort of two suwars this morning. 
He tells me, however, that for persons travelling 
post, the road is safe; I therefore decline his offer 
of a guard, but accept an order entitling me to 
demand an escort wherever I think fit. He invites 
me to stay the night at his house ; inasmuch as it is 
only noon and I am anxious to push on, I decline 
his invitation with thanks. He then gives me 
his photograph and a piece of needle-work done 
by one of his family; regretting that, as he was not 
prepared for my arrival, he cannot offer me a rug 
like the one I admired behind him. His manner 
is so kind and courteous that I leave with a most 
pleasant impression. 

On the way back I purchase meat, a rare article 
in these parts, and some cakes which — being less 
oily and dirt-covered than usual — appear edible. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 149 

On reaching the carriage, I am forced to get in 
it to eat my lunch, since there is nowhere else 
to sit. I am soon surrounded by interested ob- 
servers, but fortunately' have begun to realise that 
persons who wander through the East, must ac- 
custom themselves to the public performance of 
what we consider private occupations. The rain 
now falls steadily, splashing on the roof. Aghajan 
is, as usual, inefficient as a baby in regard to get- 
ting the drivers ready, proposing to await their 
good pleasure in starting. He has no initiative, 
and accomplishes nothing unless I stand by curs- 
ing. Kind words and encouragement I have long 
realised to be useless. It is also impossible to 
extract from him an accurate answer to any ques- 
tion ; as I am entirely dependent on him for infor- 
mation, his shiftiness is maddening. After shaking 
him up as much as I can, we manage to start about 
one o'clock with the same four horses we brought 
with us, there being no others. The driver who 
— it transpires — has only been five days on the 
road, is a poor specimen even for a Persian. 

We have gone but a few hundred yards outside 
the town, when the harness breaks beyond any 
possibility of the usual tying up with string; so 
the driver jumps on a horse and rides back to 
town for repairs. After we have waited in the 
rain for a half-hour, he reappears, accompanied 
by a man riding one horse and leading another. 
He is tall and lantern- jawed, about as evil-looking 
a fellow as I care to see. At first Aghajan says 



I50 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the man has brought horses of his own, which he 
wishes to rent ; for this he will of course cheat me 
outrageously, but the road being very bad, I am 
willing to submit to robbery within certain limits. 
As soon as I tell Aghajan to bargain for them, he 
announces that they do not belong to the man, 
who — knowing that we could not possibly reach 
the next relay to-night — has brought them out 
merely to help us back to Sabzawar. This imme- 
diately arouses both Said's and my suspicions, as 
a short stay in this country suffices to make one 
cynical; but it is impossible to discover what the 
man's motives really are. I try to extract in- 
formation from Aghajan, in order to decide whether 
to return or not; this of course proves useless, as 
the only coherent statement he makes, is that the 
driver — who before starting said we could easily 
reach the next relay by dark — now insists it can- 
not be done under ten or twelve hours ; the reason 
for this, impossible to elicit. In the meanwhile 
the new-comer has unharnessed a second horse, 
and interferes every time I order a question put 
to our driver, who stands about doing nothing. 
Gradually it leaks out that he is insisting our 
horses and driver are tired and hungry; and that 
we have no right to take the horses. This shows 
that he is, as suspected, trying to gain some end 
of his own. What it may be, I cannot tell; but 
— as Said says — it is evident he has not come 
"pour le bien de Monsieur." 

Whilst Said and I are standing near the carriage. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 151 

this obnoxious individual jumps on the box beside 
Aghajan, takes the reins, turns the carriage round, 
and starts the two horses toward Sabzawar. This 
being a Httle too much, I decide to proceed at any- 
cost, since I am certain that some ill is intended, 
and will not, at any rate, submit to such high- 
handedness. I shout to Aghajan to ask the man 
what he means by getting on the carriage without 
my orders; and to tell him to turn it back and 
harness the other horses immediately. Like the 
born idiot he is, Aghajan jumps down, leaving the 
man alone on the box; whereupon he whips up 
the horses and starts off at a gallop, which looks 
at though I should never see carriage or luggage 
again. Said and I start after it on a dead run — 
— despite long coats — through mud, pools of 
water, and heavy rain, shouting furiously; reach- 
ing it first, I jump in, seize my pistol, get to the 
horses' heads, and level it at the man, ordering 
Aghajan to tell him to get down immediately or 
I will shoot. This he does, but stands about 
defiantly, interfering with the horses our dumb 
little driver now brings up. Before I realise what 
is happening, Said seizes the brigand by the throat, 
and blacks both his eyes as neatly as possible. 
(It is never wise to threaten me, when Said is 
present.) The man does not lift a finger to defend 
himself, but with black glances pours out protesta- 
tions that he has only come to aid us ; these are 
eagerly interpreted by my trembling guide. In the 
meantime my driver calmly proceeds to harness the 



152 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

very horses the other man had said did not belong 
to the post; while this is going on, the brigand pulls 
up his blouse, ostensibly to arrange his belt, but 
really to let me see a huge pistol stuck through 
two rows of cartridges. When the horses are 
ready, he attempts to mount the box in the driver's 
place; probably with the intention of attempting 
to rob us in a lonely spot, or perhaps of attacking 
Said with fists and pistol when out of sight of the 
city. I therefore pull my revolver out again; 
levelling it first at our driver, then at the other 
man, I order the one to drive, and the other to 
take the remaining horses back. This produces the 
required effect; but when the driver has got on the 
carriage and started, the brigand follows us, 
leading two horses and yelling lustily. After 
crossing a stream a few hundred yards ahead, I 
decide that it is time to oblige him to stop. Halt- 
ing the carriage, _I aim my pistol out of the rear 
window, and tell Aghajan to shout to the man that 
if he attempt to cross the stream, I shall fire. 
Disobeying my orders as usual, " lilly-Hvered " 
Aghajan jumps down, rushes back, and begins 
talking to the man with that childish air which in 
him is habitual. As I do not wish to shoot the 
cause of all this disturbance. Said and I decide 
that if he stir, we shall seize him from behind and 
throw him into the muddy stream. As he shows 
no signs of advancing, I order Aghajan to come 
back and start the carriage; before he obeys, I 
have to threaten to thrash him soundly. Finally 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 153 

we make a third start, — I hanging out of the 
carriage with my pistol aimed at the ominous 
individual, who remains on the further bank until 
lost to sight. What his plans were, I shall never 
know ; but it is certain that he intended harm . 

It is nearly three o'clock by the time we get 
under way in heavy rain, crossing the plain by a 
road that is nothing more than a broad strip of 
mud full of pools and streams of water. After a 
Httle the Minar of Khusrawgird — all that is left 
of the ancient city — rises from the waste; a deso- 
late tower of brick, adding one more touch of ruin 
to the dreary outlook. About half after four, we 
reach a particularly nasty caravanserai, whose 
keeper tries to persuade me to halt. The im- 
possibility of ascertaining anything accurate about 
distances, is one of the trials of travel in this 
country; but the road having been tolerable so 
far, and this place supposedly half way to Rivand, 
which I wish to reach to-night, I see no reason for 
not continuing. 

The road becomes worse and worse, finally 
losing itself in trackless mud, diversified by 
hummocks and gullies worn by what are now 
small torrents. The carriage rocks from side to 
side, straining fearfully. The plain spreads out on 
all hands of us — nothing but mud and sickly green 
earth, soaking in the downpour, while far away a 
wavering shroud of mist closes in. In the fast- 
gathering dark, this sodden table-land is a most 
repulsive sight. The gullies grow deeper and 



154 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

wider as the mud increases, until it forms a 
veritable quagmire, holding as in a clamp the 
heavy carriage. The horses can only drag it a 
few hundred yards at a time, then stop to rest — 
panting loudly. Every few moments we stick 
fast, apparently for good. It is now raining so 
hard all the curtains have to be lowered; we 
struggle along in a sort of swaying tomb, with just 
enough space left clear in the door to see the 
darkness creeping closer and closer across the 
dank earth. 

A sinking dragging sensation, then a sudden 
jerk; we have stuck fast beyond the possibility of 
extricating ourselves unaided — up to the axles at 
the edge of a swirling stream. It is now almost 
night, and I can see no way of finding the road 
(the driver of course has no lanterns) even if we 
manage to free the carriage. I therefore put the 
coachman on a horse about seven o'clock, and 
send him for assistance to the next relay, which he 
says is only distant a '^ little far sakh." This I do 
most reluctantly, since it is quite probable that 
even if he find horses, he will leave us here all 
night, rather than venture out into the storm a 
second time. I offer him and anyone he may 
bring back large tips, if they get us out of our 
predicament; then, with a sinking heart, watch 
him disappear in the dark. The rain has stopped, 
and — there being a moon behind the clouds — 
the plain is visible by a ghastly light that seems 
dead, a mere ghost of light, making the scene 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 155 

more hideous than night itself could ever do. 
Here we are ! stuck fast in the mud by night, in the 
midst of an uninhabited plain in the wildest part 
of Persia, with three horses pawing the water that 
runs between their hoofs; not a human being 
within miles, and Aghajan no more to be relied 
on than a puling child. Said is as usual splendid, 
keeping a level head and a cheerful manner. 

About eight o'clock, resolving to make the best 
of bad luck, I have a lighted candle fastened to the 
opposite seat by its own grease, and start to dine 
on some of the food fortunately brought with us. 
I am just thinking that, inasmuch as it is not very 
cold, a night spent in the carriage will not be 
unendurable; — when a raging gale springs up Hke 
a flash, and drives a flood of rain hissing before it. 
The wind clutches the flimsy curtains on the sides 
of the carriage, tearing at them until they slat 
like wet sails. The candle is blown out by the 
first gust, plunging us in impenetrable darkness. 
The storm is so fierce, I cannot leave even Aghajan 
without a shelter, and have to bring him inside the 
carriage. It is soon evident that unless we hold 
the curtains fast, they will rip themselves free and 
leave us without any protection against the roaring 
elements. Said and I have to stand on each side, 
with our arms stretched out as far as possible, and 
hold the flapping corners of the muslin, while 
Aghajan looks after the door-curtain. Hours 
seem to crawl by as we crouch in cramped posi- 
tions, clinging to the wildly shaking curtains, and 



156 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

listening to the wind shriek and bound outside 
like an enraged animal. The rain gradiially begins 
to trickle in through chinks and soaked surfaces. 
With the help of a match, I make out that it is a 
quarter past nine — two hours and a half since our 
driver left; trust in his return has now sunk very 
low. My only hope is that he will be afraid lest his 
horses die of exposure, and he have to take the 
consequences. Wind, rain, and cold, augment 
steadily. Sitting here late at night, caught in a 
bog on a deserted plain in a far country, during a 
storm increasingly furious, and with small pros- 
pect of relief, — is, I am free to confess, the most 
disagreeable experience travel has ever brought 
me. 

The wind falls slowly, and the rain — that has 
probably soaked through the covers into the 
luggage — ceases. This brings some alleviation of 
our plight, and a return, if not of cheerfulness, at 
least of resignation. Said gets my electric pocket- 
lamp out of my valise, so that, in case an3^one 
pass, we can see who it is ; our revolvers have long 
been in readiness, since this part of the country is 
reputed unsafe. Aghajan is walking about beside 
the now restive horses, who paw and plash the 
running water. He maintains that he hears people 
coming toward us; as before we stuck fast, he also 
asserted that he saw Rivand just ahead of us, 
and all his statements are unreliable, — his words 
do not arouse my hopes. When his shouts bring 
no reply, I am certain he is wrong; a few minutes 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 157 

later, however, his call is answered. This is the 
most welcome sound I have ever heard. In a few 
minutes our driver trots into sight, accompanied 
by three extra horses and another man intelligent 
enough to have brought a spade and lantern. 

By the dim light of my electric torch, the horses 
are reharnessed and the wheels dug free, all to the 
accompaniment of loud vociferation. Precisely 
at ten o'clock, the carriage is pulled out with wild 
shouts to encourage the horses, who dash up the 
opposite side of the gully. I think a prisoner 
newly liberated from gaol, could scarcely feel 
more elation than I. However, our troubles are 
by no means ended; we have only gone a short 
distance, when I hear an extraordinary swishing 
sound as the carriage halts; on looking out, I find 
we are in the middle of a wide stream swirling 
around our wheels. It looks as though we shall 
never get across; motionless in this dim light, the 
roar of water breaking the desolate silence, is most 
lugubrious. We manage to extricate ourselves 
somehow, and advance quite well, with one of the 
men riding behind us and driving two of the horses 
before him, — since no power on earth could make 
these Persian drivers harness all seven horses. 
Said has just remarked that the road is improving, 
when there is a frightful crash as the carriage 
slides to one side, topples over, and then stops 
suddenly. On getting out, I discover it has 
slipped down a bank the rain has washed in the 
road, and is now resting with one wheel up to the 



158 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

hub in mud, and the other several feet higher up 
on the decHvity. At first sight the front axle and 
spring appear to be broken; but, after several 
agonizing minutes, it turns out that the springs 
have merely been tilted forward in front of the 
axle-tree. After much digging and pulling, we are 
able to proceed, reaching Rivand a little before 
midnight. 

Having been told that this was a good place to 
spend the night, I expected a fairly decent cara- 
vanserai — like the one last night ; but find only mud 
hovels. Crossing a manure bog and stumbling 
up a narrow flight of mud stairs outside the so- 
called house; I discover only one possible room — 
in which the proprietor and his wife were asleep 
when we arrived. I can only hope the cold may 
inhibit the activity of their invisible companions. 
In this room I have to lodge Said as well as myself, 
while the luggage is piled up in a nearby cave- 
room. However, this place seems palatial, when 
I think of the night I might have passed on the 
plain. After a fire has been lighted, which of 
course fills the room with smoke — not heat, and 
my blessed samovar has produced boiling water 
to make a cup of cocoa, cheerfulness returns. 
Said — whose resourceful disposition has been 
goaded to disgust by Aghajan's soft and unreliable 
ways — contemptuously christens him "I'artiste" 
on account of his — let us call them — imaginative 
statements. He has just gone to lecture "I'artiste " 
in the hope of rousing him into a semblance of 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 159 

manhood. As I prepare to go to bed, I hear 
Said's deep voice laying down the law, successfully 
I trust. 

March 5*.^ 
I was waked very early this morning by the 
sound of voices quarrelling in the street below, to 
find the sun struggling out — a most welcome sight. 
Aghajan appears to have been electrified by 
Said's lecture of last night; he is bustling about 
underneath my window, having the carriage roped 
up, while disputing with the green-turbaned head 
of the village. It seems that just outside the wall 
there is a piece of road, which last night's down- 
pour has made impassable. Aghajan has actually 
sent men to dig a way through, and improve it as 
best they can. Whilst I am looking out, a string 
of donkeys that have just waded through this 
place, comes into sight coated with mud half way 
up their flanks. The carriage having been straight- 
ened out as much as possible and loaded — the 
whole village watching the process — we start with 
four horses and two more following, escorted by the 
entire male population from old men to toddlers. 
A stone's throw beyond the last hovel, we reach 
the obstacle at a spot where the road passes 
between two banks upholding the wheat-fields on 
either side. Last night's flood — following several 
days of rain — has turned this place into a vast 
ditch, filled with a foot or two of soft mud covered 
by water. Here and there a few men are digging 



i6o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

mud out of the slough, with the entire village 
lined up on the banks, watching. 

While we are waiting, and men are riding the 
extra horses up and down, in order to find the best 
place to attempt, and everyone is shouting advice ; 
a battered victoria drawn by four horses, comes 
into view from the opposite direction. It halts to 
let the passengers alight; then the coachman 
whips up and dashes into the qua.gmire, his 
horses plunging wildly as they fling mud and 
water high into the air. They have almost reached 
the opposite end, when — with a sudden flop — the 
carriage settles up to the hubs in a mass of gluey 
mud. The driver flogs and screams, while the 
onlookers "dash toward the horses, shouting 
furiously to start them. The poor beasts plunge 
and pull a few inches; then there is a resounding 
crash as the springs break, letting the whole 
carriage sink into the bog; whereupon the horses 
are unharnessed and groups of villagers start 
hauling out the broken victoria. One of the two 
passengers proves to be the head of the post relays 
at this village; he appears quite unconcerned — I 
suppose, because he is used to such things. He 
tells me that even if we succeed in passing this 
spot, there is a piece of road a few miles ahead, 
which we cannot possibly cross to-day in my 
rickety omnibus. He guarantees that, if I will 
stay the day here, he will mend my vehicle, start 
me off to-morrow with eight rested horses, and 
get me safely through. The carriage is in such 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN i6i 

bad condition, I am quite ready to stop, and even 
wonder if it would not be wiser to return to 
Sabzawar where there is a blacksmith, and 
perhaps — so discouraged am I — from there turn 
back via Mashhad to the railway at Askabad. 
By noon I am re-installed in the dirty lodging I 
occupied last night. As the post-master is the 
first Persian I have met, who seems to have any 
knowledge or initiative, he inspires some confidence ; 
so, after seeing the carriage trussed up with ropes 
and other contrivances, I decide to keep on to- 
morrow. The post-master tells me that the 
Governor of the province (who has been notified 
of my journey by the kindness of the British 
Consul at Mashhad) has wired to Sudkhwar, the 
next stage, ordering that I be given an escort of 
honour consisting of fifty suwars ; but that — 
there being no more — twenty-five have been sent, 
of whom twenty turned back when I did not 
arrive last night. These figures are of course 
exaggerated, but there are probably one or two 
suwars still waiting for me; which is encouraging, 
since it means men to help when in trouble. . . . 
The post has just arrived from Sabzawar, after 
taking nine hours to do the sixteen miles; it is to 
pass the night here, and to-morrow I am to 
accompany it. I am wondering what malign 
spirit prompted me to refuse the Governor's 
invitation to stay at vSabzawar, since I might have 
spent the night there — avoiding all my troubles — 
and been quite as far advanced now. 



i62 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

March 6*.^ 
It is still night when I rise at half past-four 
o'clock. The fire behaves worse than usual, filling 
the room so full of acrid smoke that I cannot dress, 
even when I crouch close to the floor. Conse- 
quently I have to fling the ruddy brands out into 
the blackness of the street below, and remain 
shivering with cold. Shortly after I am dressed, 
a wanness appears above the horizon, against 
which the great chijidr tree in the courtyard is 
distinctly outlined, as well as another in the 
distance — on whose boughs a solitary fowl is 
perched. Then a redness slowly flushes the lower 
heavens, and the chindrs begin to glow as though 
made of radiant metal, while the stars recede 
from the fast-illumined sky. The horses are 
harnessed by seven o'clock (which is doing well) 
and we start, accompanying the post — a rude 
wooden waggon without springs, piled with sacks 
and guarded by two armed men besides the driver. 
When we reach yesterday's slough, conditions 
have improved ; after endless consultation and the 
harnessing of two extra horses, the post-master 
takes the reins himself, and starts the team on a 
gallop through the mud and water. I watch his 
splashing progress with great anxiety, and give a 
deep sigh of relief when he reaches the end without 
mishap. Nevertheless, the precarious condition 
of the springs fills me with trepidation; my only 
hope lies in the numerous ropes with which they 
are braced. It is also encouraging to find that our 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 163 

driver is the energetic fellow who came to the 
rescue night before last. To-day he is in full 
livery — that is to say, a shaggy Turkoman's 
bonnet; and is much pleased with himself when I 
take his photograph, because he is the first driver 
I have met in Persia possessed of anything like 
ordinary intelligence. Of course there are no 
signs of the four extra horses I was promised; but 
it has been agreed that the post shall travel with 
my carriage, lending horses and helping whenever 
necessary. 

When we finally make a real start, the sun has 
just begun to peer over the earthen walls of 
Rlvand, gilding the sky with tints of pale yellow 
so luminous they force my eyes to drop. The 
plain is nearly dry, and the road — where there 
is one — fairly good. Every few hundred yards, 
however, the torrents that recently rushed down 
from the neighbouring mountains, have dug great 
gullies, sometimes several feet deep and often with 
steep sides. Bouncing into these and up the 
opposite bank, is dangerous — as well as difficult — 
in an old omnibus loaded with luggage 'and dis- 
abled by weak springs. At ever}^ gully that 
crosses the waggon-tracks — for that is what a 
road means — all of us have to get out; then my 
men and those from the post, dig out the wheels 
and level the edges when we are stuck, or else fill 
up the cut if sufficiently narrow. After that, often 
with an extra horse from the post, we struggle 
across amid wild shouts of encouragement; the 



1 64 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

omnibus swaying, bounding, and creaking, evety 
moment in imminent danger of breaking into bits. 
As this business has to be repeated every five or 
ten minutes, it is easy to imagine how slow and 
nerve-racking our progress really is. Once the 
post-waggon sticks in a gully, practically on end, 
with the horses perched on the bank above; from 
which interesting position it is only extricated with 
great difficulty. On one occasion Aghajan takes 
the reins, while the two drivers pull and whip; 
with his usual dexterity he almost turns the 
carriage over, bringing it to a halt in the worst 
possible position. 

We are now in the midst of a great plain, bor- 
dered on each hand by hills, here and there tipped 
with snow, the plain of Mihr, where the "War of 
Religion" — so famous in Zoroastrian literature — 
occurred. Ahead of us the little range of serrated 
peaks around which the Iranians executed their 
victory-bearing flank movement, emerge from the 
level earth as suddenly as volcanic islands from 
the sea. It is strange to think that this dreary and 
almost uninhabited plateau, across which we are 
advancing so painfully, was in prehistoric days the 
scene of actions whose fame still lingers. A little 
after ten o'clock a troupe of horsemen— followed 
by a post-waggon — gallops up, headed by an 
extraordinary individual, wearing a Bedouin's 
headdress and around his armi a vermiHon band 
with the Turkish star and crescent. On dis- 
mounting, his appearance and manner are — if 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 165 

possible — still more curious; he tells me, in an 
impossible French jargon, that he is a Young 
Turkish journaHst from Constantinople, on his 
way to Kabul. I cannot help wondering why he 
wishes to enter the forbidden land, Afghanistan, 
and how he will manage to do so. The first Young 
Turk I have ever seen, does not impress me very 
favourably. He is accompanied by five suwdrs, 
two escorting him and three sent to meet me. 
They are rather less shabby than usual, particu- 
larly one who rejoices in a pair of European russet- 
leather boots and a young horse. I am glad to 
have them arrive, riot for the sake of their dubious 
protection, but because they make it possible to 
send for help if needed, or even ride ahead m.yself 
on one of their horses. They report that five of 
the Turkomen whose raids have made the road 
insecure, have recently reappeared and are now 
being pursued in the mountains. Unless the 
Turkomen are arrant cowards, they are certain to 
escape; for everything leads me to believe that 
Persian character and courage have not changed 
since the days of Haji Baba. Indeed, Morier's 
famous phrase, based on the actual word of a 
Persian general: — "O Allah, Allah, if there was no 
dying in the case, how the Persians would fight!" 
— was paralleled a very short time ago by a 
Persian officer who, to the enquiry why he had 
not ordered his men to advance, replied: some of 
them might have been killed. 

Shortly before reaching Sudkhwar, three gazelles 



i66 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

chased by a dog bound across the road. My 
escort pursues them, firing several times; but 
fortunately the graceful leaping creatures escape 
their harriers in the hills across the plain. We 
arrive at the relay about eleven o'clock to my 
intense relief, as each stage ended without mishap 
to the carriage, is a weight off m}^ mind. An empty 
carriage is standing by the post-house, but proves 
to be in even worse condition than mine. I take 
my luncheon on the floor in a house that belongs 
to the suwdrs, with one of them seated opposite, 
watching me. He knows just enough French to 
make me understand that his native tongue is 
Turkish, and that he has been brought from Tih- 
ran by the Governor of this province ; his eyes and 
bearing show that — like most of the men — ^he 
smokes opium in his tobacco. To be an object of 
curiosity and constant inspection, I find most 
embarrassing. Probably I shall soon learn to 
endure the stare of searching eyes with perfect 
indifference; at present, however, when every 
gesture is watched by silent spectators, my food 
sticks in my throat, and makes me sympathise 
with small children who bellow under the gaze of 
strangers. 

When I leave, my former escort refuses a tip 
(to me a novel experience) because I am their 
master's guest. Four new men — poor shabby 
devils like the rest of their ill-fed and unpaid 
fellows — accompany me on lank quivering horses. 
The shabbiness of these Persians is too pitiful to 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 167 

be ludicrous; they certainly are wretched speci- 
mens of humanity, but it is impossible not to com- 
miserate them, since in no country I have ever 

visited is there such abject misery as here 

The new driver is an idiot who takes chances 
in bad places, so every minute I am expecting 
the springs to break. This anxiety makes travel 
detestable, as does the ceaseless tying and re- 
tying, breaking and mending, of the century-old 
collection of rotten string supposed to be harness. 
The horses are always untrained and badly 
harnessed ; though broken down — being stallions — 
they neigh, kick, and rear, giving as much trouble 
as thoroughbreds. In place of real whips, the 
drivers have nothing but a little stick with a yard 
or so of string, which makes no noise and is only 
used to thrash the horses unmercifully; whenever 
one of them misbehaves, the driver jumps down, 
and — until stopped by me — flogs the poor beast 
about the head in a manner as brutal as it is 
stupid. This time we have only gone a short 
distance, when, while walking, I notice that one 
of the horses has a horrible raw wound under the 
collar. The driver watches my attempts to lessen 
its misery, with the passive scorn one might 
bestow on the vagaries of a spoiled child. It is 
impossible to return, since the post will not wait 
for me, and also useless, since the next traveller 
would take the same horse; all I can do, is to pad 
the collar with my handkerchief ; but the thought 
of this wretched animal with his wounded neck 



i68 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

pressed against the burning collar as he struggles 
along, adds new distress to the journey. 

The road improving gradually as the moimtains, 
which send down the destructive torrents, grow 
lower, the carriage finally reaches Mazinan intact. 
The first thing to do, however, is to have it 
doctored, since the town boasts a so-called black- 
smith; in the midst of a curious crowd, which 
probably does not see a firangl (foreigner) once a 
year, all the local talent is called in to straighten 

and reinforce the springs The walled 

town is entered by a large arch leading into a long 
street, where a few trees grow beside a dirty 
rivulet rimning down the middle. Camels and 
donkeys crowd about this gateway so thickly, it is 
hard to pick one's way; further along, strips of 
light and darker green stuffs — freshly dyed — 
hang across the street in great festoons. There 
being no caravanserai, I lodge in a house on the 
outskirts of the town, where a fairly clean room 
with a miraculous fire-place that does not smoke, 
gives on a court for once free from manure. 
Walking on the roof, I can see a waxing moon 
shine in a cloudless sky, strewn with glittering 
stars everywhere, except close to the horizon. 
Looking across courtyards enclosed by mud roofs 
with tiny domes — like bubbles in breadcrust, I 
can distinctly see the white cap of a single snow- 
peak, hanging without apparent support above the 
empty darkness, precisely as Fujiyama is drawn 
in the colour-prints of Hokusai. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 169 

March 7*.^ 
Aghajan having last night been threatened with 
dire penalties, if he did not have the samovar 
boiling by four-thirty A.M., slept soundly — 
although the alarm-clock which Said placed 
beside his head, must have rung loudly. For- 
tunately I woke before five myself, and managed 
to rouse him by pounding on his door, and shouting 
a string of oaths — the only thing I have found 

effective From the roof- terrace the sky 

is visible, veiled with grey except toward the 
eastern horizon, where a ruddy bronze cloud is 
hanging, with a few trees traced on it in lines of 
black. When my kit is ready, dawn has come but 
not the sun. Two men precede me between the 
mud walls of a narrow street, carrying the luggage 
slrmg on their backs by ropes across the shoulders 
— a living illustration for ' Umar's verses : 

' ' And then they jogg'd each other, ' Brother ! Brother ! 
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking.'" 

Each day furnishes new impediments to an 
early departure, but this morning's is most 
unusual. On reaching the gates, we find them 
fastened by a padlock and heavy chain, which 
permit the doors to open far enough for a man to 
pass — so marauders could perfectly well enter by 
night — but not wide enough for my kit to be 
carried through. Aghajan, who has preceded us 
by some minutes, is rushing about helplessly, 
since the keeper of the keys is not to be found at 



170 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

any of his habitual haunts. This is maddening, 
despite my now large experience of the annoyances 
incident to Persian travel. The doors stoutly 
withstand every effort Said and I can make to 
pick the lock, or break the chain with stones. 
Finally a man with the key appears from nowhere ; 
but it is impossible to discover whether he is a 
culprit, who deserves to be scolded for forgetting 
to open the gate, or a benefactor who has fetched 
the key. 

The carriage is loaded and ready to start about 
seven — only one hour late! It has been patched 
up, but so badly I realise it can never reach 
Shahrud, where I had hoped to find another. 
Rather than put up with unceasing anxiety, lest 
the carriage break down at every bump or gully 
we cross; I decide to take afourgon, like the post- 
waggon, as soon as I can find one. No matter 
how tortviring its lack of springs may prove, it 

cannot be worse than my present worries 

There are many ruined villages scattered along 
the road, some of their remains — I believe — of 
great antiquity. We are still crossing one of those 
barren plains which apparently constitute the 
greater part of Persia; skirting low hills to the 
right, with a lake-like accumulation of shallow 
water on the left. About ten we reach a caravan- 
serai, where the suwdrs have a post. As there are 
no relays here and three farsakhs to go before 
reaching one, the horses are taken out to be fed 
and rested — whereupon I discover that one of 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 171 

them is horribly galled. The sight of these maimed 
creatures is beginning to make my trip a night- 
mare. Whilst waiting, the suwdrs of my past and 
future escort invite me into a small but rather 
clean room, stir the smouldering fire, and bring 
me tea. The chief who is to accompany me, 
appears to be something like a lieutenant, and is 
in his green uniform the first to have any pretence 
to trimness. He has raven hair, curling about his 
ears in the two locks Persians still affect, although 
many of them — as far as I can tell — no longer 
shave their heads; he is bronzed, with a cast of 
features reminding me of the pictures of Darius 
Codomannus in history-books. 

When we leave, the suwdrs escort us, galloping 
in front of and behind my carriage and the still 
faithful post- waggon. The scenery is extremely 
monotonous — a desert strewn with hummocks 
on which leprous plants make grey spots, with 
occasional salt deposits forming white patches 
easily mistaken for snow. The only break in the 
monotony occurs at the Pul-i-Abrasham, a bridge 
which once marked the boundary between the 
provinces of Iraq and Khurasan. About one 
o'clock, we pass a military outpost built on a hill 
to protect 'Abbas Abad against raiding Turkomen ; 
here I am offered tea in tiny glasses on saucers, 
with little spoons standing in them and many 
lumps of sugar at the bottom. While I am drink- 
ing it, my escort indulges in noisy refreshment 
inside the tower. After trotting up and around 



172 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the shoulder of a hill, 'Abbas Abad comes into 
sight opposite but below us — a collection of the 
usual mud houses built on a mound, up which 
they rise in several tiers, with a flag making a 
scarlet spot over the principal gate. I know that 
this is the place Shah 'Abbas founded with a colony 
of Christians transported from Georgia, who 
afterwards became Muslims ; but this bare historic 
fact fails to invest with interest a commonplace 
town. This is often the case; yet travellers are 
to-day so eager to revivify history and arouse 
sensation by giving the imagination a free rein, 
that they frequently attempt to be thrilled, when 
it were wiser to realise how the past sometimes 
vanishes beyond recall. Be this as it may, 
'Abbas Abad leaves me unmoved. 

When we enter the town, I find — to my surprise 
■ — the greater part of the inhabitants lined up to 
await my arrival, which they greet with deep bows. 
On alighting, the first thing I do, is to search for a 
fourgon; to my relief I discover a solid one, which 
I soon persuade the bare-legged post-master to 
give me in place of my tottering omnibus. Then 
I am told that the chief official of the town and 
the captain of the suwdrs are waiting to receive 
me; so I march off like a potentate, followed by a 
gaping crowd and flanked by lines of spectators. 
After crossing a neglected court, I ami ushered 
into a small octagonal room, where light only 
enters through the door and an aperture in the 
roof; its floor and walls are covered with carpets. 




A Persian Post Driver in Full Livery 
(This is the only intelligent driver I encountered in Persia) 




Carrying the Mail in Khurasan 
The Post- Waggon in Difficulties 




Exchanging a Broken Diligence for a Springless Fourgoa, 'Abbas Abad 







"TP* '. ■&■ 4 




The Burial-Place of Bayazid, Saint and Mystic, Bustam 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 173 

Three or foiir men are standing to receive me, 
none of whom can speak a word of anything but 
Persian; after many interpreted salutations, I 
take a seat on the floor cross-legged, leaning on one 
of the three cushions placed against the wall. 
Sitting cross-legged in stocking-feet like the 
Orientals, is all very well; but with blackened 
boots, it is a painful and soiling position. Grow- 
ing used to the semi-obscurity, I begin to distin- 
guish the features of those present. When various 
politenesses have been exchanged through Agha- 
jan, he goes to look after the luggage; in order to 
lessen the embarrassment which enforced silence 
makes me feel, and also to shield myself from my 
hosts' unwavering scrutiny, — I take the officer's 
child on my knees, making tolerable friends with 
this chubby young Persian. Before long a servant 
enters, says a few words to the officer (among 
which I recognise the word, post), then withdraws. 
In a moment the little man who has guarded the 
mails since Rivand, appears in the doorway, 
removes his shoes, wipes his hands on his hand- 
kerchief, and crosses the room. He next kneels in 
front of the captain, takes his hands, and bows 
low enough to kiss both knees; the officer then 
raises the man's hands to his own heart in acknow- 
ledgment of the salutation, and allows him to 
retire. 

Aghajan now reappears to announce that lunch 
is ready, which I was not expecting. Passing into 
the next room, I find an elaborate meal laid out on 



174 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the floor, according to the real Persian custom. 
A large green cloth covers the whole carpet, 
except a space near the walls where the guests are 
to sit. In the centre is a large glass of water, from 
which all who wish may drink; the edges are 
bordered with the strips of thin bread, which 
appear to be indispensable at any respectable 
Persian repast. The table or rather floor-cloth is 
thickly covered with dishes — for the most part, 
bowls of all sizes and shapes — filled with edibles 
such as were served at Nishapur. The principal 
dish is of course a pilaw, with which the other 
foods are mixed. For me a spoon, knife, and fork 
have been provided; the others eat with their 
fingers in true Persian fashion, leaning toward or 
crouching over the food, which they toss into their 
mouths and swallow with extreme rapidity. 
Please yourself is the motto; each man helps 
himself to whatever he wishes, whenever he 
chooses, leaving the room as soon as finished. 
There is no disregard of others in this custom, 
since everyone is equally at liberty to do as he 
pleases; moreover, if the table-manners lack the 
polish to which Occidentals are accustomed, the 
sincere hospitality and courteous intentions are 
admirable. After luncheon tea is served again, 
Persians seeming to surpass even Russians in 
their ability to drink unlimited quantities of chai. 
Being guest of honour, I am always given the 
largest glass ; so the amount of tea which I absorb, 
must be enormous. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 175 

As soon as it is polite to do so, I make the move 
to leave, being anxious to continue my journey. 
I find that Said has had the luggage transferred 
to the fourgon, and has arranged it cleverly, with 
my bed and two valises forming a low-backed 
throne, on which it is possible to sit quite com- 
fortably. After exchanging elaborate salutations 
with my amiable hosts, we start — Said and I 
perched on the throne, exactly like the mediaeval 
Russians in one of Rimsky-Korsakov's legendary 
operas. As the road from here to Miamai is still 
supposed to be dangerous on account of frequent 
raids by Turkomen, my escort is numerous and 
headed by the chief of the suwdrs in person. He 
is a tall lithe man, with sharp black eyes, an 
aquiline nose, and a deeply bronzed complexion — 
a living personification of Don Quixote. He wears 
a green jacket and trousers; the former almost 
hidden under a leather cuirass full of cartridges, 
the latter held in place by leggings but little higher 
than anklets. His feet are shod with "prunella" 
boots, whose outstanding tabs — with Russian 
letters — betray their origin. On his head is a 
curious white felt hat, the brim of which has been 
cut in two, so one half can be turned up behind 
tintil it touches the high stiff crown, while the 
other forms a long visor. He is riding a white 
stallion, nobly formed and daintily stepping, 
without a coloured hair on his whole body, except 
his tail dyed flame-red with henna, precisely like 
the horses in old Persian miniatures. It may seem 



176 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

grotesque, but this one flamboyant touch of colour 
on the snow-white animal, is as beautiful as it is 
striking. The saddle-trappings are of embroidered 
cloth, with a long cord, finished by a tassel, almost 
trailing on the ground on either side; underneath 
the saddle is a tawny spotted leopard's fell, 
entirely covering the horse's crupper, with a paw 
dangling on each flank, and the tail hanging beside 
the horse's. Around the neck — just behind the 
ears — is a collar filled with cartridges, two by two; 
another, with a long fringe of swaying leather 
cords, staring from the pommel, encircles the 
chest. This splendid charger paces along — as 
though dancing — on slender legs that look like 
springing steel, tossing a head as small and finely 
shaped as any Phidias carved, at the same time 
bending his beautiful neck and clipped mane. 
With his picturesque rider erect in the saddle, this 
curvetting stallion — his leopard skin, tassels, and 
fringes, swinging from side to side as he arches his 
gaudy tail streaming proudly in the wind — is a 
sight I never expected to see outside of some 
exquisite miniature wrought to captivate the 
magnificent Shah 'Abbas; it is also the first 
beautiful or unusual one I have seen since entering 
Persia. 

Our procession is headed by a siiwdr with a 
jacket of pinkish purple, of which all but the 
sleeves and skirt are hidden by a cartridge-cuirass. 
He is leading the officer's extra horse — a fine jet- 
black creature, over whose saddle is thrown a 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 177 

vermilion cloth richly embroidered about the 
border. Then come in succession : the captain, the 
escort, my fourgon, and the post. The road rises 
slightly but steadily, winding across a barren 
plain, until it reaches a desert upland full of sandy 
hillocks, now spreading out, now enclosing the 
road in a narrow gorge. The dust-brown or 
greenish earth is denuded of all vegetation, with 
the exception of dried clumps of grass and a kind 
of thorn-bush covered with purplish blossoms, so 
minute they form a haze of mauve around the 
bare and angular twigs. The sim, now burning 
hot, shines directly in our faces, suffusing all 
things with a glittering mist of gold. Advancing 
up this strange land of barren hills, preceded by 
armed horsemen six abreast, headed by a scarlet- 
caparisoned lead-horse and an officer mounted 
on a white stallion, sweeping from side to side his 
incredible tail, — is a striking experience. 

The road now begins to ascend perceptibly, and 
the monticules turn into hills of respectable size, 
undulating awa}^ row upon row. At the small 
fortified village of Alhaqq, we stop for a half -hour 
to rest the horses, and refresh ourselves with 
omnipresent glasses of sugared tea. The captain 
tells me — through Aghajan — that some seven 
months ago a band of nine hundred Turkomen 
raided these parts, of whom he and his men killed 
seven hundred; that he has affixed the head of a 
Turkoman over the entrance of every caravan- 
serai (I have seen none) as a warning to marauders ; 



178 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

that he is obHged to be on the watch day and 
night, and has often been four days in the moun- 
tains without food for himself or his horse; and 
finally that he has just received news of five 
hundred Turkomen advancing on this part of the 
country. Shades of Haji Baba! I can almost 
hear your voice, and could well believe that time 
has reverted a hundred years. This Tamburlaine 
is certainly a most picturesque fellow and very 
courteous ; but I should place more reliance on the 
powers of his tongue than on the valour of his 
fighting. If my thoughts do him Vv^rong, may I 
be forgiven. 

As we mount a steep ascent, the sun has begun 
to sink, and clouds have gathered in threatening 
masses, streaked by black shreds of trailing rain. 
Between the farthest range of hills and the edge 
of the rain-shedding clouds, a group of moimtains 
is faintly visible in the far distance — glazed with 
pale green reflections, and sharply outlined against 
a sky of aquamarine filled with small white clouds. 
Viewing the pallor of this aqueous green land- 
scape through the narrow space between sombre 
hills and still blacker sky, seems like peering into a 
world under the ocean. Far behind — where the 
storm has not yet gathered — the sun slants 
toward the barren plain, tinging it with rose, 
lavender, and mauve. Ahead of us from time to 
time, the figures of a man and a grazing horse ap- 
pear on the highest hill-crests, sharply silhouetted 
against the raven sky. They are sentinels (on the 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 179 

watch for marauding Turkomen) whose presence 
brings a realisation that the danger of travel in this 
part of Persia, is not altogether imaginary. As 
we pass, they jump on their horses, gallop down 
the steep inclines, and, after saluting, report to the 
captain. As we proceed, under heavens darkening 
more and more, these hill-perched sentinels appear 
with greater frequence and in larger groups. 
Several times upon receiving their report, the 
officer orders our driver and the driver of the post- 
waggon — which is following us with five armed 
men seated on the mail-sacks — to drive as fast as 
possible, since there is danger. The cold has 
become unpleasant, and in front the rain is 
trailing down in great fringes of blue-black, ad- 
vancing rapidly until they wrap us in a heavy 
shower, half water, half hail. 

Night has now all but fallen; more than once a 
watcher's tent appears on the summit of a hill 
beside a red-gold fire, flickering against gathering 
shadows among which sentinels stand out vaguely. 
Rattling along this desolate road in a remote 
country, followed by the armed post, as night 
moves across the hills amid gusts of rain, with 
watchmen visible on every crest, and an officer 
urging us into a gallop through the sinister dark 
to avoid possible danger of attack,— is quite 
thrilling. Gradually the storm withdraws, allow- 
ing the long-risen half moon to shine out of an 
expanse of azure sky, where — it would seem — 
glittering stars move swiftly past immobile clouds. 



i8o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Day has insensibly changed into a moon-lit night, 
whose pallid radiance beautifies the barren hills. 
The cold has grown intense enough to make me 
eager to exchange this noisy jolting waggon for 
shelter. Straight ahead of us, solid black storm- 
clouds are still advancing slowly, until a sudden 
flash of lightning dashes down the sky in a 
flame of jagged white. The moon is hidden 
again, the cold increases, and the relay seems 
interminably far off. At last a second flash 
of lightning rives the dark, revealing for one 
instant the walls of the caravanserai ; then a light 
appears where kneeling camels are encamped with 
their drivers outside the walls. Passing on, we 
find the road huddled with bleating sheep, then 
finally enter the court just as rain patters down 
once more. 

I am led through the blackness of a vaulted 
passage into a second enclosure, where mud hovels 
cluster — just visible by moonlight filtering through 
the clouds. The only room to be had is a nasty 
kind of half -cave, half -prison (its shtitterless 
windows barred with iron) where wind and filth 
abound. When in moving it, I break the feeble 
lamp and have to wait ten minutes in complete 
darkness before anyone comes, my traveller's 
courage ebbs to its lowest. After Said has 
arranged things as best he can, and a not too 
smoky fire has been lighted and something to eat 
has with infinite difficulty been secured; I go to 
bed with a wry smile. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN i8i 

March 8*.^ 
Aghajan had my fire hghted at a half after four, 
still the dead of night — but, despite dire threats, 
did not have porters and horses ready to leave at 
six o'clock. Men to carry my kit to the carriage, 
only appeared after I had shaken him by the 
shoulders, and had gone to the stable myself in 
search of the driver. Polite signs that I wished 
the horses brought out proving fruitless, I returned 
to the long dim vault of a stable. Finding the 
driver seated on a high platform, leisurely smoking 
and drinking tea; I took a running leap, landed on 
the platform in the middle of the indolent group, 
seized my driver by the collar, and — amid con- 
sternation and screams of shaitdn (the devil) — ■ 
threw him off and banged his head against one 
of the horses. After this they were im.mediately 
brought out. A few more weeks of travel in 
Persia, and I shall have much sympathy for the 
shaitdn to whom I have just been so kindly 
compared. 

About seven we leave this loathsome caravan- 
serai, with a just-risen sun driving the mists away, 
while to the right across the now golden plain, 
remote peaks of snow stand out. They sink, like 
icebergs in a Polar ocean, to what — by a curious 
play of cloud and shadow — appears to be a shallow 
lake, extending to the mountains that bound the 
horizon ahead of us. The captain and his suwdrs 
are not ready, but soon overtake us; the post, 
however, fails to put in an appearance — which no 



i82 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

longer matters. Persian luck has given me one 
horse that must be suffering from some horrid dis- 
ease, since it exhales a stench beyond endurance. 
When I can bear it no longer, I ask Don Quixote 
to have one of his men lend me a horse and take 
my place in the cart. To my relief, this is done at 
once, but I find riding a Persian saddle — which is a 
wooden letter V with a high pommel, padded with 
cloth — rather painful, partictilarly as it forces 
me to take an unaccustomed position, and has 
very short stirrups. 

The road ascends through a narrow gorge 
between burnt hills, still dotted with not infre- 
quent sentinels — this being a much dreaded stage. 
After passing two fourgons, loaded with currency 
for the bank at Mashhad and escorted by an 
armed guard of Persian Cossacks, we arrive at a 
large square fortification with a round entrance- 
tower ; beside a flag-pole, peering over the gateway 
battlements, is a stuffed hyena — rather a ghastly 
sight. There is a coming and going of suwdrs; then 
six of them line up and blow me a salute on very 
shrill trumpets ; after which I am led to a room in 
the tower, where I find the officer who is to accom- 
pany me the next stage, and a Persian travelling 
with the convoy to Mashhad. After taking leave 
of the picturesque braggart, who has headed my 
guard since yesterday, we start again about eleven 
o'clock. My escort is now reduced to two men 
besides the new officer, but he is a host in himself 
— a broad-shouldered giant with an almost black 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 183 

face, who wears real riding boots neatly made, and 
carries a pistol slung across his cartridge-cuirass 
by a golden baldric. He is riding an iron-grey 
stallion, with saffron saddle-cloth and tassels, his 
four fetlocks dyed with henna to almost the same 
shade as the trappings ; and sits his mount superbly 
as though horse and man were one, the very 
image of Othello or a fierce Renaissance condottiere. 
We reach Miamai about noon. On the hills above 
the village, there are ruins of old fortifications — 
supposed to date from the Irano-Turanian wars — 
which were visited by the English traveller, Fraser, 
in the winter of 1833, but as far as I know by no 
one since. Before commencing this journey, it was 
my firm intention to climb these hills and see 
what is left of the strongholds; my archseological 
enthusiasm has, however, been annihilated by the 
strain of such travelling as this; so I decide to 
push on to Shahrud to-night — after declining my 
officer's courteous invitation to stay at his house. 
An escort no longer being necessary, we start 
alone across one of those eternal plains I am 
beginning to hate bitterly. Storm-clouds lour on 
all sides, until at last hail and rain overtake us. 
At the next relay, much scolding and a long dispute 
secure five horses to help me reach Shahrud, the 
residence of the Governor of the province, whose 
guest I am to be. I have learned that he is absent 
at Samnan; but knowing that I will be less un- 
comfortable in an important town than in a road- 
side caravanserai, am eager to arrive before dark. 



1 84 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

After a long stretch of changeless scenery, we 
come in sight of high mountains draped in snow 
and clouds. In a cleft between the two highest 
peaks, vapour is piled in a mound like snow, with 
clear sky above. Far ahead are mountains of dull 
blue, entirely in shadow, but with rays from the 
cloud-hidden sun slanting into the folds between 
the spurs, filling them with golden haze. At their 
base, a blue-green band of trees conceals the town 
of Shahrud. The coachman rattles along at a 
good pace, until — about six o'clock — we reach a 
village where a group of snwdrs is waiting to 
receive me. One youth with an almost black 
complexion, wears under the usual long brown 
coat a robe of vivid indigo, contrasting with his 
high bonnet of bright gamboge; he is holding a 
dapple-grey horse, with a silver cord and tassel 
fastened around its neck behind the ears, and a 
broad silver collar around its shoulders. He looks 
as though about to appear in a Russian ballet. 
When we start again, my escort is headed by a 
rider holding a silver rod almost five feet long — 
used in these parts as a sign of honour. Cavalry- 
men gallop up from every direction, until we are 
surrounded by at least fifteen. The sun is setting 
as we dash across the plain, but when we draw 
near Shahrud the moon floods the scene with its 
subdued radiance. The driver appears excited 
by my cavalcade and silver wand of honour, so I 
make a princely entry sitting on a throne of 
luggage, clinging for dear life to the side of my 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 185 

springless old waggon, as it dashes along with a 
furious creaking of wood and clanking of chains, in 
the midst of caracoling horsemen. This dramatic 
arrival, the most sensational I have ever made, 
amuses me by its combination of the picturesque 
and the ridiculous. It appears that I was to have 
been lodged at the country-seat of the Amir X., a 
few miles outside the town; however, on account 
of the lateness of the hour, I am taken to the house 
of one of his retainers hard at hand within the 
walls. Here after a long wait, much arranging of 
my luggage, and a general scurrying to and fro, I 
have my dinner — seated cross-legged on the floor 
opposite a white-haired and courteous old man, 
with whom I cannot exchange a single word. 



March 9*.^ 
My first move this morning is to try and secure 
some sort of a carriage in place of my jolting 
fourgofi; this I fortunately succeed in doing. Then 
the Amir's representative, the Governor of the 
town, and several notabilities, come to call on me. 
After prolonged formalities exchanged through 
Aghajan (no one who has not tried it, can imagine 
the irritation of talking through an interpreter) 
the Governor and I drive off in the Amir's carriage, 
a real but somewhat neglected brougham, which 
here seems curiously out of place. Our objective 
point is the old city of Bustam, illustrious as the 
home and burial place of the great Sufi mystic, 



1 86 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Bayazid, whose loving charity toward all life, 
legend has symbolised in the following hyperbole: 
— having ended a long journey, he discovered a 
number of ants on some grain brought from his 
starting-point; whereupon he retraced his entire 
road, in order that he might return the tiny 
creatures to the home whence he had unwittingly 
carried them. Leaving Shahrud behind us at the 
foot of bare pointed hills, we cross a sterile plain 
lying in an amphitheatre; on the one hand, tawny 
hills of crumbled earth and rock, absolutely bare 
of vegetation, but toothed and graven by the 
erosion of untold centuries; on the other, high 
mountains — so dark an olive as to appear black — 
tipped and streaked with snow, where banks of 
clouds fill the valleys with veils of shining white. 
Far away above Shahrud, an immense white chain 
rears itself above the nearer mountains. It is bold 
barren scenery, whose acrid beauty would readily 
exalt mystic thought. It is not unlike those 
stringent Castilian landscapes, the very aridity 
of which enflames their lovers as nothing else ever 
can; landscapes that aroused the mystic ardour of 
saints (Theresa of Jesus and John of the Cross) 
until it leaped toward God like a flame springing 
sun-ward from the summit of a barren mountain. 
Only scenes such as this seem propitious to trans- 
cendental seekings, for I can recall no example of a 
great mystic reared among the graces of luxuriant 
vegetation. It is strange to think that a thousand 
years ago, in this remote and now abandoned spot, 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 187 

Bayazld looked out toward these bitter hills, and 
wrote: — "I went from God to God, until they 
cried from me in me, * O Thou I ! '" 

"When God loves a man, He endows him with 
three qualities in token thereof: a bounty like 
that of the sea, a vSympathy like that of the sun, 
and a humility like that of the earth. " 

And again: — "Notwithstanding that the lovers 
of God are separated from Him by their love, 
they have the essential thing, for whether they 
sleep or wake, they seek and are sought, and are not 
occupied with their own seeking and loving, but 
are enraptured in contemplation of the Beloved." 

Then, as now, many must ardently have longed 
to know whether such ideas represent Truth, or 
are only the spinning of an over-subtle brain. 

Bustam is fortified with walls of dried clay, 
crowned by a curious series of sharp points pierced 
with holes. The colour and material of this and 
all other Persian towns, make them seem a part of 
the earth in a way buildings never do in other 
lands. At the city-gate, a number of men are 
waiting to receive us and lead the way to the 
house where we are to lunch. We pass through 
narrow unpaved streets, enclosed by high walls of 
dried mud; the lack of houses with visible doors 
and windows, and the complete absence of all 
signs of domestic life, create in this and in all 
Oriental cities a secret and mysterious atmosphere 
that no Occidental, who has not visited the East, 



188 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

can conceive. When the house is reached, the 
entire company seats itself on chairs around a 
long table; there then ensues one of those inter- 
minable waits, during which my inability to 
converse without an interpreter, makes me hor- 
ribly ill at ease. The chief notability finally ar- 
rives; an elderly man — looking as though he had 
just stepped out of a miniature — with keen eyes 
and sharp features, that give him rather a 
distinguished air. He is wearing a spotless 
white turban, and a long cloak lined with fur, 
over an under robe of lavender grey; and leans 
slightly on a cane. A most elaborate lunch is 
served on the floor of the next room, during 
which I find the habit of slinging food into 
the mouth and gulping it with frequent eructa- 
tions somewhat trying. Notwithstanding this, 
I have nowhere been treated with more perfect 
consideration. 

When the meal is ended, the entire party starts 
out to show me the town, with the greater part of 
the inhabitants following us in silence to watch 
that unusual animal — a foreigner. We first visit 
the picturesque ruins of an old mosque, with a 
most curiously built tower, whose former use I am 
completely unable to ascertain. This inability to 
converse or make enquiries is extremely trying, 
since nothing can be extracted from the broken 
phrases of an interpreter, who only knows the 
English required in travelling. The view from the 
mosque-roof over the house-walls to the Shrine of 




i 



^--|-|f\J^ 



The Burial-Place of Bayazld from the Mosque Roof, Bustam 




A Group of Notabilities, Bustam 



-r?^^ 




••/ 



It f^ 4 



A Tower beside the Mosque, Bustam 






'4 



I 




Watching a Firangi at the Tomb of Bayazid, Bustam 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 189 

Bayazid, with its enamelled cones shining in the 
sun beside the curious minaret, is very picturesque. 
A few leafless trees make a tracery of soft grey; 
and earth, houses, and distant hills, are all a 
golden brown under the various greys and pearl 
of clouds idling across a sunny sky. 

The shrine is a small, half -ruinous group of 
buildings enclosed by a wall of mud bricks, out of 
which four grated apertures peer like eyes. It is 
dominated by two cones covered with falling tiles 
— one of which has its metal finial rakishly bent to 
one side — and an elaborately patterned minaret, 
that sways visibly when a man climbs to the top 
and rocks backwards and forwards. I have great 
difficulty discovering in which of these places 
Bayazid is supposed to be buried; but decide it 
must be on a roof where a comparatively modern 
alabaster slab has been erected. I am also shown 
a dark cell, where the saint is supposed to have 
remained in prayer. If he ever used it, he must 
have had the habits of a mediaeval ascetic or a 
Hindu fakir. While I am wandering about the 
precincts, all the boys and young men perch on 
top of a ruined wall like crows, eying me in 
silence. After passing through a picturesque 
court in the old fortress, where three trees 
mirror their unbudding boughs in a pool of 
rain water; I am shown a pleasure garden of 
the Amir's, which is truly Persian, inasmuch as 
the pavilion is falling to pieces although not yet 
completed. 



190 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

March I0*^ 
As my escort will not accept tips when I am 
their master's guest, I sent Aghajan yesterday for 
the chief of the suwdrs who accompanied me into 
vShahrud from the village where they had awaited 
my arrival two days, and requested him to give 
them a feast last night at my expense. With the 
probable connivance of Aghajan, the head suwdr 
announced that he had disbursed what seemed for 
these parts a very large sum. I would have paid 
the amount with pleasure, if certain the men got 
the benefit of it; the chances are that most of it 
found its way into the pockets of Aghajan and 
the head suwdr. It having been suggested that the 
one thing which would make the men entirely 
happy, was arrack — a bad kind of brandy — I 
procured some from a dirty Jew after quite a 
search; on which they undoubtedly got gloriously 
drunk, despite their religion. I was asked to come 
and permit the men to drink my health, but could 
not do so, as the Governor came to visit me just 
at that time. We had a long and rather interesting 
conversation — despite difficulties — in the course 
of which he expressed feelings of particular 
cordiality toward America. Much of this was no 
more than politeness; yet I have reason to infer 
that Mr. Shuster made a profound impression in 
Persia, and that — as a countryman of his — I am 
received with especial courtesy. The Governor 
told me that the Russian agent here had been 
making searching enquiries about me since my 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 191 

arrival ; and went on to express the deepest sorrow 
for the Russian seizure of Northern Persia, as well 
as a hatred of Russia, in which he assured me the 
very children participate. I do not pretend to 
judge, but the Persians impress me as a race 
hopelessly decadent, and I cannot believe them 
able to administer their own affairs decently; nor 
can I, the world being what it is, blame the Great 
Powers for acting as they have; nevertheless, 
Persia — exploited by her children and by for- 
eigners alike, while her autonomy has become no 
more than a shabby fiction — is certainly in a 
position between the nether and upper mill-stones 
of Great Britain and Russia, as pitiable as it is 

iniquitous While the Governor was 

still here, the Persian equivalent of curfew was 
blown at ten o'clock on a very tinny trumpet, by a 
man standing on the terrace of this house. The 
laws of the Prophet forbidding the use of wine, 
seem perennially ineffectual; both nights since I 
have been here, one of the servants has been 
drunk; about three o'clock this morning, he 
pounded on the door and yelled to be let in — 
loudly enough to raise the dead as well as myself. 
The carriage in which I leave Shahrud at about 
eight o'clock, is even more remarkable and far 
more ramshackle than the one in which I ventured 
to start from Mashhad. It is a kind of lumbering 
omnibus, which a partition divides in two; the 
front half has seats facing forwards and backwards, 
but those in the rear run sideways. The roof is so 



192 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

low, my head almost touches it when seated, and 
the whole affair is in the last stages of decay — 
but the springs seem solid. Some of the luggage is 
lashed on the roof, and the rest piled up in the 
rear compartment with "the artist" sitting on top 
of it; while Said and I occupy very close quarters 
in front, where a partition behind the driver makes 
it impossible to see straight ahead. The horses are 
a little better than usual, carrying us along at a 
good pace over what was the last stage of Alexan- 
der's march in pursuit of Darius — "the road that 
was desert for lack of water, " and desert it has 
remained to this day; a great plain with hardly a 
rise or fall, dust-coloured and strewn with rocks. 
On either side it is hemmed in by a low range of 
hills that has — in one place — been half washed 
away, until nothing is left but a rufous cliff turning 
sanguine near the crest. At the first relay, a large 
village stretches away in every direction, with 
leafless trees rising above the earthen walls, and a 
few spots of white or rosy haze showing where 
early fruit trees are in bloom — the first I have 
seen. 

The scenery is now much like the Algerian 
desert, an uncultivated plateau bordered by 
pointed lion-coloured hills. A howling gale 
springs up suddenly, raging past and making it 
bitterly cold — even when wearing two overcoats, 
one of fur. At the midday halt the chai khdna is 
too filthy to lunch in, so I have to eat out-of-doors 
as best I can, clutching my food lest the wind 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 193 

carry it off. Shortly after starting, the two mina- 
rets of Damghan become visible. The wind now 
howls past, racing the dust across the desert in 
white clouds. As we near the town, a band of 
suwdrs suddenly appears from nowhere behind the 
carriage, and rides past saluting. None of these 
Persian soldiers or police or whatever they really 
are, have anything that could possibly masquerade 
as a uniform; but several of these particular men 
are neatly dressed with quite a military air. A 
number have good horses; all of them with the 
terrible Persian bridle of Arab origin, that has — 
in addition to an ordinary bit — an iron ring 
encircling the lower jaw, which it could easily 
break if pulled hard. We all gallop along — even 
my horses and driver being spurred on by the 
escort — and reach Damghan about four o'clock. 

The road — a rough track — leads between the 
usual mud-walls, frequently in ruin. Once I 
catch a glimpse, down a lane, of a tower of golden 
brick soaring out of rosy fruit-boughs. After 
passing close to a dilapidated mosque, with a buff 
minaret of richly ornamented brick lacking its 
terminal cage; my escort halts the carriage and 
leads me a short distance to the house prepared 
by the Governor's order. Entering through a 
narrow vaulted passage, I find myself in a clean 
bright courtyard, in one corner of which a feathery 
clump of nacrous cherry-blossom sways over the 
top of the high wall, against an azure sky. Inside 
the house which forms one side of the enclosure, 
13 



194 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

are two small but very comfortable rooms, quite 
the pleasantest I have so far encountered. The 
carpets are as usual good ; for these Persian rugs — 
although inferior to the poorest of the old — are 
much better than the ordinary carpets of Europe. 
I am scarcely settled when there is a tramping of 
numerous feet in the court, as the Governor 
arrives, accompanied by a body-guard of retainers 
and servants. He is a fine-looking man of middle 
age, with clear-cut features and intelligent eyes, 
whose active and martial bearing impresses me at 
once. He speaks no French (the foreign language 
most used in Persia) so we are obliged to struggle 
with an interpreter. After a long wait for the 
indispensable tea, we start to visit the town. A 
splendid dark iron-grey stallion is waiting for me, 
with an absolutely new Cossack saddle of black 
leather. These saddles are fitted with a small 
leather cushion, very thick and hard, and are 
doubtless excellent for those accustomed to use 
them. This being my first experience, I find it 
impossible to keep my seat, sliding about in a 
ludicrous way, and almost breaking my spine 
against a hard spur which projects at the back 
of the saddle. The Governor is moimted on a 
beautiful tan-coloured mule, with yellow velvet 
saddle and saddle-cloths ; its silky coat and ability 
to gallop as fast as a horse, betoken fine breeding. 

We first ride to the citadel, an agglomeration of 
ruinous mud-walls, enclosing — on a lower level — 
what once were dwellings, in the centre of which a 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 195 

house for the Governor has recently been built. 
There are picturesque views where the walls have 
fallen, revealing the mound on which the citadel 
stands, sloping down to a moat still filled with 
water. In one direction, looking through a 
crumbling frame of clay-walls, a slender golden 
brown minaret rises skyward, far away across the 
fiat roofs and low mud- walls of the town, now 
beautified by a profusion of delicate fruit blos- 
soms — white or faint pink — growing everywhere. 
On the other side, the tomb of an Imam Zada 
rises close at hand, a building of pale yellow brick 
surmounted by a very pointed dome ; while to 
northward the distant shrine of another saint 
is easily to be distinguished across the plain. 
Wherever I look there are innumerable flat domes 
of mud breaking through roof terraces — like air 
bubbles on the surface of a muddy pond; for in 
countries where wood is too rare to use in ordinary 
building, the rudest hovel has to be vaulted. Far 
away the deep blue mountains are draped with 
passing clouds, while the sun — sinking fast toward 
their crests — casts a mellow glow, falling peacefully 
on all things like a caress. 

Somewhere on the uninhabited plain, across 
which I am gazing in this quiet golden hght, lay 
two thousand years ago the great city with the 
boastful name, Hecatompylos ; where the Mace- 
donian celebrated decisive victory over the quon- 
dam lord of all Persia, that Darius whose long 
flight across his realm found an end in death by 



196 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

treachery not far from here. Memory of this and 
a love for sonorous syllables, must have prompted 
Milton, when he wrote: — 

"Ecbatana her structure vast there shows, 
And Hecatompylos her hundred gates." 

The rubble amid which I am standing, was also 
once the centre of an important town, harried and 
razed by one ferocious conqueror after another; 
for Damghan's blood-befouled name occurs fre- 
quently in the sinister chronicles of barbarity. 
A hundred years after Alexander had become no 
more than a sounding name, the plain of Damghan 
re-echoed with the tramping of troops lead by 
Antiochus the Great; ten centuries later, another 
army swept past these walls to its defeat; then in 
rapid succession, atrocity upon atrocity laid the 
city waste. The hordes of that great Mongol, the 
world-compelling Chingiz Khan, for eight years 
filled the land with terror; and outside these very 
walls the "Scourge of God" — Timur Lang — 
built those monstrous towers of human heads 
already mentioned. Here Zaki Khan, in the 
eighteenth century, made a garden of his captives 
lashed to tree-boughs and buried alive in the 
ground, with green leaves fluttering over their 
agon3\ Here the blind grandson of that Nadir 
Shah who laid imperial Delhi in ruin, died from 
the effects of a crown filled with boiling oil, 
forced on his head by the cruel eunuch Agha 




The Citadel of Bustam 



:'~'<«£A^^^n • >.J8k 




Late Afternoon, from the Fortress, Damghan 




n 



1 >* 



(>£ ■ 



4- ^ .■■ ^ 




The Ribat of Anushirwan 
(A fortified resting-place built by Anushirwan, better known as Chosroe the Just) 




The Shah's Mosque, Samnan 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 197 

Muhammad Khan, founder of the still reigning 
Persian dynasty. Here was born that superb 
Shah, Fath 'All, the report of whose splendour 
spread through Europe. Nothing in the whole 
world brings the futility of all existence more 
keenly home than these abandoned plains, where 
life has ebbed from cities once filled with the 
hum of human occupations and the clamour of 
great monarchs, leaving nothing more than a few 
mounds that only serve to furnish learned archse- 
ologists with material for volumes of ponderous 

dispute 

We next ride out of the town to the gates, where 
the Governor's carriage overtakes us — a really 
smart landau drawn by an excellent pair of horses. 
In this we gallop — at times on a dead run — across 
the plain to a curious ruin, which the Governor 
tells me formed part of an old city, the site of whose 
gates is marked by two mounds hard at hand. On 
the way back, there is a fine view of the town : a 
low wall of dried earth (preceded by the saint's 
mausoleum) over which roofs and domes show 
amid a profusion of early blossoms, giving charm 
to what otherwise would be a commonplace sight. 
Aided by the spell which a declining sun lays upon 
all it touches, the nearby mountains lend majesty 
to Damghan — the first attractive town I have 

seen in Persia On entering the city, 

we dash through the narrow bazar — preceded by 
mounted suwdrs — at such a break-neck speed as 
makes me fear lest we kill one of the scattering 



198 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

vendors, or be ourselves dashed to pieces against 
the walls. Fading light, which glazes the clay- 
houses and waving branches, makes me loth to go 
indoors; but politeness requires it, since the Gov- 
ernor leads the way to my rooms with martial 
stride. 

After nearly two hours of conversation, really 
interesting despite the difficulty of carrying it on, 
dinner is brought in with a certain confusion, since 
the Governor has ordered it served in European 
style on a table and in courses. Aghajan, although 
a little too officious, really saves the day by 
showing the servants how this should be done. 
The meal is excellent, but the Governor only 
makes a pretence of touching a dish now and then 
out of politeness, as he intends dining at home at 
some Persian mid-nocturnal hour. Nowhere have 
I seen a person turn his household upside-down 
and put himself out to such a degree, in order to 
please a guest. It is quintessential hospitality. 

In the course of conversation I learn that the 
Governor was born in the Caucasus, I believe of 
Persian ancestors; and came to Persia during the 
Revolution, when he was made a prisoner by the 
Amir X., whose service he then entered. He is 
the first active virile personality I have met in 
Persia, and impresses me by his force and in- 
telligence. He discusses European politics, and — 
to my great surprise — makes one or two well- 
informed enquiries about the relations between the 
United States and Mexico. He inevitably men- 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 199 

tions Persia's grief at Russian invasion; stating 
that Persians will never forgive the bombardment 
of the shrine at Mashhad, and the hanging of the 
mullds at Tabriz — a city the Russians have made 
"unclean." He tells me that the Russians have 
illegally seized fertile lands belonging to Persians 
around Astarabad; and insists that when the 
Persians are able to drive the Russians out, God 
will forgive anything they may do to their oppres- 
sors. To my surprise again, he is interested in 
antiquities, giving me curious details about 
excavations around Damghan. 



March II^^ 
Last night the Governor courteously declared 
his intention of escorting me in person as far as a 
property belonging to the Amir, where he wishes 
to offer me luncheon. He was to have come at 
seven o'clock, but it is eight when a clattering of 
attendants announces his arrival. While taking 
tea, he holds a levee of retainers. When waiting, 
the servants stand close to the wall with head and 
shoulders vslightly bowed, never failing to hold one 
hand with the other — perhaps a survival of the 
days when Persian etiquette required that hands 
and feet should, as a sign of respect, always be 
covered by the hem of the robe. Whenever the 
Governor has to write, he— like all Persians — 
holds the sheet of paper in his left hand, without 
resting it on something as we should have to do. 



200 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Whether this is the cause or an effect of their 
delicate writing, I do not know ; but Persian script 
is far more lightly traced and minute than that of 
the Arabs Everyone, the Governor in- 
cluded, goes armed in these parts; he carries, 
slung across one shoulder, a large Mauser pistol 
in a wonderful case handsomely ornamented with 
gold, which is arranged to fasten to the revolver 
and act as a stock, thus forming a small rifle 
supposedly able to carry a thousand metres.. The 
Governor's suwdrs are all armed in the same way, 
and are smarter than any I have yet seen; I am 
told that he arms, feeds, and pays, five hundred 
out of his own pocket. 

The Governor proceeds on foot to his carriage, 
which is waiting outside the gate, whilst I go to 
the bazar to take my omnibus. When I arrive, 
there are over a hundred people waiting to see me 
start, lined up along the street and in tiers on the 
sloping bank ; they are quiet and respectful, making 
no audible comment, but I find their presence 
rather disconcerting. Said tells me that when he 
climbed onto the roof of the carriage to attach the 
luggage — which Aghajan cannot be trusted to do — 
their astonishment at seeing a European thus 
engaged, was intense. Outside the city, the 
Governor is waiting for me in his carriage — this 
time a victoria. Taking my place beside him, we 
start, surrounded by suwdrs. The driver of my 
diligence insists on keeping ahead of us despite 
my frantic signs to Aghajan; Said, being in the 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 201 

forward compartment, cannot see what is happen- 
ing. Finally the Governor orders his coachman to 
pass it; but the moment we come abreast, the 
driver whips up his horses and off they gallop, 
faster and faster the more we try to get ahead. 
The driver is perched on top, holding his four 
horses with outstretched arms, while the old 
waggon rolls from side to side like a ship in a heavy 
sea. Aghajan now begins to realise what has 
occurred, but instead of leaning out to shout to 
the driver, jumps out of the carriage backward 
and falls flat, skinning his hands and knees. Said 
finally succeeds in stopping the driver, who must 
have been possessed by a devil, since Persians 
are usually abject in their respect for those in 
authority. Fortunately the Governor is only 
amused, laughing heartily at what was certainly 
a most ludicrous scene. 

It is a radiant morning, and the golden moun- 
tains tipped with snow, which stand guard over 
Damghan, glow as though newly burnished. The 
clear keen air produces a thrill which makes all 
things charming. About ten we reach our objec- 
tive point, a small village which the Amir's 
property adjoins. This is a very large rectangle, 
fortified with high walls of mud and towers at 
each corner; in the centre of the front wall is a 
small two-storeyed house, whitewavshed and with a 
loggia over the gateway giving admission to the 
enclosure. This villa is to be used as a residence 
for the Amir whenever he chooses to come ; v/hile a 



202 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

hamlet of mud houses is in process of building 
inside the walls — apparently model dwellings for 
workmen of these parts. In front of the walls 
beggarly labourers are digging what will event- 
ually be an orchard. When we pass, there are 
choruses of " Ya! 'All!" which I take to be in the 
Governor's honour; but continual repetition proves 
that they are merely encouraging each other by 
invoking the martyr khalif whom all Shi'ites 
revere. 

From the roof- terraces there is a view across the 
plain, dotted as far as the first mountain spurs with 
fortified villages, while far away lie the ruins of a 
town destroyed by Afghans. An officer of the 
Amir's household — just arrived by post — and the 
chief of the suwdrs join us at the luncheon cloth 
spread on the floor. There are knives and forks 
for me, but the others — including the European- 
ised Governor — eat with their fingers, gulping 
food with a rapidity I have not seen equalled; 
this produces loud belching, which there is no 
attempt to conceal. About midday I take leave 
of my most hospitable host, and start with a large 
escort. After the next relay, where they leave me, 
I discover a suwar comfortably ensconced in the 
rear of the carriage with Aghajan; it appears he 
was ordered to accompany me, but having a lame 
horse, decided to do so in this way. As he is only a 
nuisance, it is rather annoying to have his added 
weight in the already heavily laden carriage. The 
road now begins to mount steadily toward the 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 203 

pass of Ahuwan, between low hills and across one 
of those deadly plains, the mere record of which 
fatigues. About five-thirty we reach the summit of 
the defile which takes its name (Gazelles) from a 
legend connected with the kindliness of the 
Imam Rida. In a depression just below the 
highest point are a few hovels, a brick caravanserai 
attributed to Shah 'Abbas, and the ruins of the 
Ribat of Anushlrwan. This was a fortified resting- 
place, built in the sixth century of our era by 
the great Sasanian monarch, Anushlrwan — better 
known as Khusraw (Chosroes) — who forced the 
Roman Empire, in the person of Justinian, to 
pay tribute, expelled the Abyssinians from Arabia, 
and raised to its apogee the power of Persia. The 
fact that his endeavours to render justice and 
improve the condition of the poor, should have 
gained for him the appellation of the Just, despite 
his having caused all his brothers and uncles — 
not to mention a hundred thousand heretics — to 
be put to death, affords an interesting glimpse of 
epochs, whose conditions we can to-day scarce 
conceive. Of his celebrated fortress nothing 
remains but a rectangular mass of yellow walls 
and towers, built of earth and stone, crumbling 
to ruin and devoid of any but archasological 
interest. Nevertheless, standing on this high 
barren pass watching the chill rays of a late 
afternoon sun slant toward their decay; it 
is curious to reflect on all that it must have 
seen pass during thirteen hundred years; at 



204 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

least it serves as a reminder that in Sa'di's 
■words: — 

" Many are they, once famed, beneath the ground, 
That left no record of their little worth, 
And the old corse surrendered, earth to earth, 
Was so consumed that not a bone is found. 
The glories of King Nusherwan remain, 
And time remembers his munificence." 

When we start again the sun is still bright 
although westering fast ; but in the east, the magni- 
fied disk of a full moon, cold and white, has 
already begun ascending the pathways of the sky. 
As we drive along the road — now rising, now 
falling — the moon grows golden, moving through 
the stainless blue above lion-coloured hills 
strangely formed like crouching beasts. Then the 
sun disappears, but its rays still dominate the 
moon, leaving the Occident aglow with saffron 
that fades upward into lavender. From verge to 
zenith the lucent sky has that curious effect — ■ 
occurring only at sunset — when it appears not so 
much a vault of solid colour as a luminous me- 
dium, through whose tremulous depth sight seems 
to plunge afar. Then the last reflections slowly 
pale before the moon's victorious advance, and the 
stars troop round the now refulgent orb. Very 
soon the scenery is half hidden, half revealed by 
that dim radiance which lies on all things, con- 
cealing the ugly and gracing with mystery the 
commonest of objects. 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 205 

When we reach the place where the Governor of 
Damghan advised me to spend the night, there is 
nothing but a particularly filthy tea-house with a 
single room full of natives. There is nothing to 
do but try to reach Samnan to-night; fortunately 
it is almost as light as day, and not too cold. 
Rattling through the starry night down the road 
which descends two thousand five hundred feet 
from Ahuwan to Samnan, is not unpleasant. 
After more than two hours, the vague outlines 
of the city grow visible in the moon-dusk; gradu- 
ally the}'' become more distinct, until we pass 
between high plaster posts set to mark the way, 
and reach an open square outside the walls, about 
half -past ten. As the Amir X. is not expecting me 
until to-morrow, there is no one to meet me, 
nor any state entry preceded by a mace as at 
Shahrud — which is rather a relief. 

Aghajan goes off to announce my arrival, and 
soon returns with the Amir's head-servant carry- 
ing a lantern, who shows us the way to where I 
am to lodge. Driving through the city gates and 
down a broad avenue between high walls hiding 
everything, we stop at the entrance to what I am 
told is the Governor's palace. Entering by a 
dark passage, I find myself in a large courtyard 
bathed in moonlight, where a few bare trees and 
blossomy shrubs grow in neglected beds around a 
central pool. A large portico with four white 
columns at the head of a flight of steps, forms the 
central motive on one side of the court. Behind 



206 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

this colonnade is a single room, into which I am 
ushered. Nothing could be more characteristic 
of Persia; by the dim light of two candles, I see 
an enormous room — as big as the entrance hall of 
some old abbey — with a wooden ceiling twenty 
feet or more high. A fine carpet covers the floor, 
and there are three or four gaudy chairs, gilded 
and covered with red velvet; but the walls are 
whitewashed, and the openings in the rough 
wooden window-doors have neither glass nor 
anything else to keep out air. At either end of this 
imposing apartment is a tiny room with unswept 
floors, walls scrawled with pencils, and doors also 
without glass. In one of these my bed is set up 
and a flre lighted. Although I do not wish to eat, 
the servants insist on serving a meal; after an 
interminable wait, a throng of dishes arrives from 
the Amir's own house, nearly a mile away, and is 
duly set out on the floor. When hot they might be 
palatable; in their present gelid condition they 
are quite nasty, and sitting on the floor alone in 
this vast dim room, with gusts of wind sailing 
across, endeavouring to force down some of the 
strange viands, under the eyes of Persian servants 
watching every move, — is a painful experience. 



March I2*> 
My enforced banquet of chilled food was too 
much for me ; I was violently ill all night, and this 
morning can hardly raise my head long enough to 




Court of the Shah's Mosque, Samnan 
(It is most unusual to be allowed to enter a mosque in Persia) 



-sHI 



h/ 



j 




Tomb of an 


Imam Zada, Samnan 



m^^ 



Minaret of the Assembly Mosque, Samnan 

A fine specimen of the terminal cages, most 

of which have been destroyed 



k A 





~-L 



„lf^ 



i' f I 1 4 




The Governor's Palace, Samnan 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 207 

dress for the Amir's visit. He arrives about ten 
o'clock — a tall heavily-built man, still young but 
very stout, with an active bearing despite a 
paunch not unworthy of Falstaff. To my relief 
he speaks French easily and quite well. He tells 
me about his exile in Europe, and how he intended 
entering the French army, when the late Shah 
telegraphed to the Persian Ambassador that if the 
Amir entered the French service, he would bom- 
bard the Amir's home, kill all his family, and dis- 
miss the Ambassador. The Amir goes on to say 
that he did not care about his family's danger, but 
abandoned his project out of consideration for the 
Ambassador, whose debts — due to the non-pay- 
ment of his salary — would have meant ruin, had 
he lost his post. He next gives me details of his 
sojourn in Constantinople, directing operations 
against Muhammad 'All Shah, and of his return 
to Persia on the Shah's deposition ; dwelling on the 
bravery he displayed against rebels, when govern- 
ing the town of Z. He also mentions that he has 
heard that Mr. Shuster has spoken ill of him in his 
book; but says, this is due to false reports cir- 
culated by his enemies, of which he was never 
able to disabuse Mr. Shuster's mind. He finally 
refers to the way in which the present government 
fails to pay the troops under his orders (who are 
for that reason unmanageable), while it continues 
expecting him to maintain security. In all he 
says the Amir "blows his own trumpet" without 
shame or hesitation. This interview throws a 



2o8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

vivid light on Persian character, when I remember 
the evidence of his cowardice recorded in the 
British Blue-Book, and recall Mr. Shuster's 
statement that "the Amir .... was a man 
whose general reputation woiild warrant a long 
sentence in any workhouse." My opinion of the 
Amir's character does not, however, diminish my 
gratitude for his hospitality and the unfailing 
courtesy with which I have everywhere been 
received, thanks to his orders. When he is ready 
to leave, I can only make my excuses, stating that 
I am too ill to go out, and crawl back to bed for the 
rest of the day. 



March 13*.^ 
This morning the Amir sends his head-servant 
to show me the city. I find that the avenue 
skirting the Governor's palace, is guarded at each 
end by a gateway decorated with mosaic and 
curious pinnacles bulging out near the top like the 
lotus capitals of Egypt. One of the gates has a 
gorgeous modern mosaic of Rustam slaying the 
White Devil, a formidable giant whose body is 
tattooed with elaborate patterns; while both of 
them are enlivened by mosaics of soldiers with 
foolishly fierce expressions. Passing through the 
bazars and an open square — where a mounte- 
bank is preparing to swallow glass, — ^we reach the 
Mosque of Path 'All Shah. To my surprise I am 
taken into the court, contrary to the custom which 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 209 

forbids all foreigners access to mosques; but it 
appears that the mullds of Samnan are singularly 
tolerant, and have even invited a Christian 
missionary to address the faithful in the mosque. 
Little attention is paid me, and no visible objec- 
tion made to my presence or to my taking photo- 
graphs. The court is large and clean, surrounded 
by arcades with a lofty pavilion in the centre of 
each side, two being much more important than 
the others. The architecture — of pale buff brick 
with coloured designs — is good, the elaborate 
vaulting of the great niches ingenious, and the 
general effect imposing. From the roof there is a 
lovely view, across mud-walls overhung with 
newly blossomed fruit-trees to ruddy mountains 
capped with snow. Beyond the house-roofs hard 
at hand — domed like beavers' huts — a great 
chindr tree, still leafless, rears its network of 
boughs and twigs beside an Imam Zadd's shrine; 
but the most conspicuous object is the minaret of 
the Assembly or Friday Mosque. It is of brown 
brick, completely covered with patterns in high 
relief; and is very slender, tapering from the base 
to the original cage of fine wooden tracery, which 
is still preserved. 

On returning, I learn that I am lodged in the 
palace of the old gentleman who governs the town 
under the Amir, himself the governor of an entire 
province. It appears that Persian justice is done 
here; for Said tells me that during my absence 
the bastinado was given to a poor shrieking wretch, 
14 



2IO MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

just as in the days of Haji Baba, except that they 
struck his feet with whips instead of rods. He was 
beaten for several minutes, and could hardly walk 
when released. I suppose I shall see a man 
gached before I leave this delectable country, 
where they still make human pillars of offenders, 
built up with fresh plaster, which crushes them to 

death in setting! While trying to eat 

a luncheon of chilled food, the very sight of which 
makes me ill, a man appears on the roof across the 
court and begins to chant his prayers in piercing 
tones. Were I Allah, my omniscience would grow 
weary of listening to the world resound with these 
strident and mechanical ejaculations of my name; 
and I should, in my solitude, almost hate these 
continual reminders that there is "no God but 
Allah." 



March 14*.^ 
It is seven o'clock, when I leave Samnan in a 
carriage which the Amir has kindly sent to take me 
the first stage, with an officer and eight men 
escorting it. We start off on the dead run — 
which style demands in Persia — and all but upset 
in the ditch outside the gate. When I return to 
civilisation, driving steadily on real roads in real 
carriages, without a ragged escort galloping about, 
will — I fear — seem monotonous. At the first 
relay, I climb into my rattling diligence and start 
across a desolate plain, occasionally dotted with 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 211 

small towers of mud in which the produce of the 
fields is stored against theft. About ten we reach 
Lasgird, where there are no horses; so we are 
obliged to wait until those we brought, have been 
fed and rested. 

The remains of this old city — which in some form 
dates back fifteen hundred years — are extremely 
curious. The Turkomen made life a hazard in 
these parts; wherefore, to protect themselves, the 
inhabitants of Lasgird, at a date I do not pretend 
to determine, built a fortress- town on an isolated 
plateau, in miniature not unlike those on which 
Italian cities — such as Siena^ — stand. This plateau 
was without doubt artificially made, since its 
level is not very much higher than that of the 
plain, from which it is separated by a moat as 
wide and deep as a small valley. The clay cliffs 
must have been a sufficient protection in them- 
selves, without fortified walls above; for, as 
recently as six years ago, picturesque dwellings of 
dried clay, like the hlufi they overhung with their 
wooden balconies, crowned the unbroken edge of 
this plateau-city. To-day but little is left of them, 
for the natives — after the manner of all Persians — - 
destroy whatever time has spared. This morning 
there is a continuous rattling and thumping as 
clouds of dust veil the cliff, where villagers are 
throwing the old houses into the moat, to use 
their earth to enrich the fields. Climbing the 
narrow path guarded by a fortified gate, which 
alone gives ingress to Lasgird, I find myself in 



212 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

what looks like the confused ruins of a gigantic 
bee-hive. . . . 

Nearly all the men idling about the stable to 
watch me, are dressed in blue; which — in shades 
from pale cobalt to indigo — seems to be the only 
colour generally used in this country, except 
brown for cloaks and black for the frock-coats 
of the Europeanised. When we finally start, the 
country is unspeakably dreary; endless plain with 
low hills on the one hand and, on the other, hills 
so creased, they look as though created by pressing 
them down until forced into folds. They have 
long spur-like claws, and vary in colour from a 
vague pink to stretches of ugly purple-red — the 
shade of dried blood, where there are stripes of 
tan and white spots with mauve edges. The 
whole range is metallic and ghastly, like the 
calcined remains of a cataclysm. Mile after mile 
of plain strewn with rock, begins to work on my 
nerves. The only distraction is afforded by the 
sight of a few distant citadels, like that at Lasgird 
and like it in ruin. About five o'clock we reach a 
place called, I believe, 'Aliabad ; to my annoyance 
no horses are to be had, and I do not dare start 
after waiting for the horses to rest, as the road is 
reported bad and there will be no moon until late. 
The caravanserai is more than I can put up with, 
notwithstanding my recent training ; so I persuade 
the gendarmes — who are the first of those trained 
by Swedish officers we have met — to give me a 
room in their post. No food of any sort can be 







The Ruins of Lasgird, the Fortress City 




My Third Vehicle, Masshad to Tihran 




f^^BBSmmP^ 




A Slight Interruption on a Khurasan Road 
The Persian Post in a Bad Position 




'^^I 



Aghajan Fording a Stream 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 213 

bought, so I have to manage with what is left 
from the luncheon carried with me. The gen- 
darmes keep coming into the room to watch me, on 
the pretext of fetching some of their belongings, 
until I can bear it no longer, and have to ask them 
— through Aghajan — to leave me alone. Really I 
am beginning to long to escape from Persia; for so 
far, there has been nothing interesting enough to 
repay me for the discomforts and annoyances — of 
which being unable even to wash in privacy, is not 
the least. 



March 15^^ 
When after breakfasting I step out about six 
o'clock, it is still a moon-lit night without sign 
of dawn. The "artist," Aghajan, displays his 
powers at their best this morning; while dressing, 
he assured me the horses were ready, but I now 
find him sitting lazily at the door of the tea-house, 
with not a single horse in sight. This is rather too 
much; so I prod him with my stick until he gets 
up, then — ^without really hurting him — give him 
a couple of cuts across the legs, in the hope of 
frightening him sufficiently to make him have the 
horses brought out. After a long wait, they begin 
to appear through the dusk between moonlight 
and on-coming day. The drivers harness them 
with unusual slowness, which is maddening, since 
I wish to make a desperate attempt to reach 
Tihran this evening. Last night the post-master 



214 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

promised me six horses to get me across a bad 
ford, if I waited till morning; there is not a sign of 
them, however. It is now long after six o'clock, 
and a dull red spot crawling toward us across the 
plain, must be the lantern of a waggon; if it arrive 
before I have started, there is sure to be a dispute 
about horses. Scolding and pleading cannot 
arouse in Aghajan enough courage to make the 
drivers bring out the extra horses. A carriage 
drives up while we are waiting, and realises my 
worst fears by proving to be the post, which has 
right of way. The driver now flatly refuses to 
give me extra horses, saying they are required by 
the post. In desperation I shake him soundly, as 
that has heretofore proved efficacious; this time 
the result is unexpected, for the man begins to 
pick up stones and throw them at me, Aghajan of 
course stands by whimpering, without raising a 
finger; but Said puts an end to the bombardment, 
by jumping on the man from the roof of our 
carriage, where he was fastening luggage. Then 
the most terrific row I have yet seen, ensues over 
the question as to whether I am to have any 
horses or not. The chief of the relay, drivers, 
post-driver, post-passengers, Aghajan, and half 
the village, scream and gesticulate, while I stand 
by, silent but very combative, as I have a right to 
at least four horses. I call the chief of the gen- 
darmes over, but he is of no service ; finally I have 
to agree to start with four horses when the post is 
ready, which is to lend me its horses to ford the 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 215 

river. Having got up before five o'clock, I manage 
to leave after seven — utterly fatigued and ruffled 
by the delay and dispute, entirely due to the 
wretched "artist's" customary failure to have the 
carriage ready. 

It is now full day and radiantly bright. About 
eight we come to a broad stream, now a torrent 
more than a foot deep raging between high banks. 
After palavering and reconnoitring without end, 
the post — which first had to be hauled, with the 
aid of my horses, out of the mud where it had 
stuck — manages to cross safely. Then two horses 
are ridden back and harnessed to my diligence 
beside the other four; while I stand on the bank in 
suspense, it crosses slowly, reeling from side to 
side with its loaded roof, and threatening to 
capsize every second. When it has reached the 
bank without accident, horses are once more 
brought back for Said and me to ride across, with 
our feet drawn up to keep them out of the splashing 
water. This performance occupies almost an 
hour, but the driver cannot be persuaded to 
harness the horses, until I prod him thoroughly 
with my stick. 

At last we reach Qishlaq, rather a large village 
with a detachment of neatly uniformed gendarmes, 
belonging to the gendarmerie created by Mr. 
Shuster and since organised — with questionable 
success — by Swedish officers. Their presence since 
yesterday shows our proximity to Tihran. For- 
tunately there are eight horses so there is no 



2i6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

dispute as to whether the post or I shall take them. 
While waiting here, the chief of gendarmes — a 
neat soldierly young Persian — enquires if I am 
armed, and then insists that I must give up my 
pistol, leaving it with him to send on when I have 
secured the proper permit at Tihran. This I 
flatly refuse to do, as I should never see it again, 
and moreover conditions are such that I am not 
willing to travel unarmed even from here to the 
capital ; fortunately he does not insist. 

While leaning against the carriage in the middle 
of a very narrow street, filled with people standing 
along the walls and in shop doors, — I suddenly 
hear a shot hard at hand. Looking up, I see one 
of the gendarmes standing with a smoking rifle 
in a doorway a few feet off. The horses are so 
excited, my first thought is that one of them has 
been hit, my second that the man has run amok 
and shot an enemy. Before I can tell what has 
happened, the gendarme drops his gun, rushes up 
to me, and begins to moan, trembling and wringing 
his hands. Thinking he has gone mad and may 
attack me, I start to seize him — when I hear 
groans on the other side of the carriage, run round, 
and discover the poor bare-legged fellow who was 
harnessing the horses, stretched on the ground 
bleeding profusely from a wound in the leg. 
Liickily the bullet went clean through the fleshy 
part of the calf. It appears that the gendarme^ 
not knowing how to handle his rifle properly, 
discharged it by mistake. He is standing here in 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 217 

ignoble terror, gibbering like an idiot. The officer 
finally makes his appearance, and has him led 
away by two of his comrades. As the wounded 
man is not seriously injured, and the officer has 
summoned a doctor, there is nothing to do but 
leave him to the mercy of Persian surgery. 

From Qishlaq the road leads across the desert 
to the hills rising from the plain precipitously — • 
like the foremost wave of some molten flood, which 
in prehistoric times swept across the country, 
until here suddenly solidified. At one or two 
points a jagged peak emerges from this immense 
dyke, which descending water has ravaged, until 
the entire surface is fluted like a column and 
streaked horizontally by varying strata. In 
colour these hills are light ochre, in places faintly 
tinged with purple, as though some pomegranate 
coloured liquid had flowed down them, leaving 
stains through which the yellow sometimes shows. 
The higher hills on the left are rosier or even 
rusty, barred with ugly lines of deep purplish 
red, while in one place a mass of cindery black 
resembles a seared wound. 

Turning sharply to the right, we enter the 
Sardara Pass. At first it is so narrow, there is 
only just enough room for the road beside a little 
stream of clear water running swiftly over pebbles. 
Then it widens out to a small plain, then contracts 
once more. The low ridges on either side are 
fluted and glazed like all the others, but have 
curious rolls of earth running down to the stream, 



2i8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

where they are cut off abruptly. These hills 
seem encrusted with metallic tints of orange, 
green, and mauve, which make the whole defile 
look like mineral ore. There are saline deposits 
everywhere — plaques of leprous white on the 
higher slopes, on the lower spurs a feathery pow- 
der. These strange formations with their acrid 
colours — varying from yellow to crude purples, 
interrupted by jagged peaks of red — and their 
fantastic flutes, now vertical, now curved, grasping 
the valley floor as though with fingers, compose an 
artificial panorama, suggesting the work of acids 
on an unknown scale. 

The best authorities seem agreed that this is the 
"Caspias Portse," through which Darius fled from 
the Greeks. It is therefore probable that these lurid 
hills saw hyacinthine-headed Alexander, with his 
army, pass in pursuit. The great Macedonian 
may have been in reality ill-favoured; but I can 
never think of him except as the incarnation of that 
Hermes carved by Praxiteles, whose deathless 
beauty illumines the little museum built in the 
ruins of Olympia, among the pines that on golden 
summer-days waft into the presence of the god 
an aromatic fragrance like the scent of sunshine. 
Thus must the young conqueror have looked, 
when he traversed this defiie. On the comely head 
and close-curled ringlets, a great helmet certainly 
rested, its vermilion crest standing out against the 
clear colours of the pass as violently as blood on 
white skin. His gilded armour — however be- 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 219 

dimmed by dust — must have coruscated, flinging 
back the sun-rays. He could never have been on 
foot, so his charger surely arched a close-cropped 
mane, and tossed a small fine head — as the horses 
do in the Panathenaic festival on the marbles of 
the Parthenon — swaying, with every step, the 
young conqueror's bare knees and well-rounded 
legs encased in greaves. Perhaps then as now, a 
little wind rustled the sedge on the river's brink, 
catching his mantle and whirling it out like a 
wave of flame. Eagerness and even anxiety — 
later exultation, when, on reaching the plain, he 
learned the captiu-e of Codomannus — must have 
wrought his face; although, without doubt, a 
certain poise dignified his emotion. The soldiers, 
hastening after and around him, could have been 
but little more romantic than those of the present ; 
nevertheless, even they must have had a touch of 
that Grecian goodliness since lost. To-day not so 
much as a pinch of dust remains of that Trampler 
of Kings who wept for other worlds to conquer; 
yet here in this remote pass, to me he seems more 

real than the driver on the box What 

curiously complicated creatures we are! I note 
these ideas, because they occur to me — at least to 
one half of my brain. But another half calls them 
mere rhetoric, born of a desire for suitably roman- 
tic sensation; a stern and mocking half which 
maintains this is nothing but a moderately 
picturesque part of a barren coimtry Alexander 
probably never saw; and that even if he did see it, 



220 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

driving through it does not make him one half so 
real as he is in the works of historians and poets. 

If Alexander crossed this pass, I am sure he 
never met with difficulties greater than those which 
impede us to-day. In several places the road 
makes a perilous plunge to the river-bed, then rises 
precipitously on the other side; the only way for 
the driver to negotiate these crossings, is to send 
the horses down on the run, strike the stream with 
a splash, then gallop up the other side, — the car- 
riage careening wildly every minute, in imminent 
danger of upsetting. Needless to say, we all 
prefer walking at these moments. In one place 
where the bridge is down, w^e stick fast in the 
gully beside it; here we might have remained all 
day, had the post not chanced to overtake us and 
lend extra horses. This it does, not out of kindness 
so much as necessity, since we bar the road. One 
of the passengers — a pleasant-looking youth in a 
clean coat of sky-blue — takes our horses by the 
head, and leads them up the winding road at a 
gallop, holding in one hand a blue glass lamp, with 
which he will entrust no one. He is a comical 
sight, brandishing his lamp; but I am sincerely 
grateful to him, inasmuch as he is the first Persian 
who has voluntarily aided us when in trouble. 

About two o'clock we reach Aiwan-i-Kayf ; a 
large mud village divided by what must sometimes 
be a river, but is now only a very wide expanse of 
stones and pebbles, through which muddy rills 
run swiftly. The river-bed is dotted with women 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 221 

washing linen, many of them dressed in citron- 
coloured veils, which make picturesque spots 
against the buff background. Beyond Aiwan-i- 
Kayf the wind whirls by, driving clouds of dust 
across the detestable plain over which rain is 
threatening. There is nothing to relieve the 
monotony which in Persia seems eternal, until we 
reach Sharif abad late in the afternoon. In the 
dreary light, pines, poplars, and flowering fruit- 
trees, — which crown the walls like a giant garland 
— seem doubly graceful. From here, the road is 
constantly cut by fairly deep streams of water, 
rushing down from the high mountains now hard 
at hand ; the fords are difficult to cross and require 
much reconnoitring before we venture. Suddenly 
the sinking sun appears on the horizon, between 
the hills and the black edge of a rain cloud, turning 
that portion of the sky a gloomy green-gold, while 
overhead the air is filled with luminous trails of 
vapour. Then the sun sets and darkness falls fast, 
until complete when we reach a caravanserai; 
here I decide we must pass the night, as, if I try to 
reach Tihran, we might easily upset while crossing 
a stream in the darkness. 



March I6*^ 

This morning it is very cold when we leave 

about seven o'clock, with supposedly only four 

farsakhs between us and Tihran; but, as usual, 

they grow longer the farther we go. The sun 



222 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

makes feeble efforts to pierce snow-clouds, illumi- 
nating the landscape with faint opal light, while 
an icy wind blows straight from the snow -moun- 
tains. The roadside is strewn with more than the 
customary number of camel skeletons and bloody 
carcasses of decaying donkeys. The constant 
sight of unheeded death and the odour of neg- 
lected carrion, add a special horror to travel in 
countries such as this, where small incidents con- 
tinually emphasise that murderous and indifferent 
aspect of life, which in civilisation is somewhat 
veiled. 

The road slowly rises among barren hills, with 
the golden dome of Shah Abdul 'Azim looking 
like a large yellow tulip far away in the distance 
down a valley; then it turns sharply to the right, 
winding up and around the shoulder of a mountain, 
until far below — through the opening between 
descending hills — a great table-land, tinged with 
varying greens, lies before us. On every side hills 
and mountains form an amphitheatre, where 
Tihran is just visible across the plain, nestling at 
the foot of the hills. Opposite us, the mountains 
begin to rise in lofty snow-peaks, until to the 
north they culminate in the imiperial cone of 
Damawand; then, curving around, sink once more 
to the level of the barren hill on which we have 
halted. It is a noble site for a city — probably 
unworthy of its beautiful surroundings. The road 
now pitches down past the Parsis' round white 
"tower of silence," with distant views of Ray; 



MASHHAD TO TIHRAN 223 

then reaches the level, where the blue domes and 
clustered minarets of the capital grow each moment 
more distinct. Past a curious series of high mud 
walls, used to keep shallow ditches of water in 
shade so ice will form, and between hovels of dried 
clay; we jolt along to the tiled and once gaudy 
gate of Tihran. After paying an entrance tax 
on the carriage, we drive through shabby streets 
where a little horse-tram rolls along, around the 
large and uninteresting Maidan-i-Tup, and up 
a broad avenue to the little Hotel de Paris, kept 
by the former Shah's French chauffeur — the man 
who was wounded by the bomb thrown at Muham- 
mad 'All. Its modest but comfortable accommoda- 
tions, and its good coffee and milk with real bread 
and butter, seem to me the height of luxury; for 
the disappointing journey of six hundred miles 
across the wastes of Khurasan and Iraq, has 
sorely tried my endurance by its lack of those 
interests which make negligible the hardships of 
travel. 



IV 
TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 



IS 225 



IV 

TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 

March 17^'^ to 25^^ 
A MORE uninteresting place than the capital 
of Persia would be difficult to discover. The 
modern city of Tihran comprises a common- 
place native town, a large square without distinc- 
tion, a few shabby streets of European shops, 
and a quarter without charm almost entirely 
occupied by foreign legations. Customs and 
costumes are of no interest, since they are neither 
truly Persian nor wholly European. The city's 
vague pretension to be a Europeanised capital, 
makes it even less attractive than such places as 
Mashhad. Residence here must surely be a trial 
to all Europeans — except members of the British 
and Russian Legations, whose endless game of 
political chess probably makes life exciting. To 
outsiders this contest is not pleasant to watch; 
for a visit to Tihran confirms the impression that, 
however degenerate Persians may be, they have 
never — since the Revolution — been given a decent 
opportunity to attempt reforms, without the 

227 



228 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

interested dictation of the Powers. Germany's 
incredible and all-reaching influence has probably 
been at work in subterranean channels; Russia 
has openly hectored and seized everything of 
value; while Great Britain has been compelled 
by political necessities of irresistible force to 
violate her best traditions, and — ^in the words of 
an Englishman — "play the ignoble role of lending 
respectability to the proceedings." 

It is difficult to avoid politics here, since they 
are in the very air one breathes. Politics, repre- 
sented by the Legations, also contribute the one 
picturesque sight in Tihran — the carriages of the 
ministers and officers, driving about preceded by 
two horsemen and followed by a guard, carrying 
lances with fluttering pennons. The other thing 
which lends a little grace to this dreary city, is the 
snow-mountains visible at every street end. They 
peer serenely down with their pearly masses, or, 
in the case of Damawand, a sky-supporting cone; 
and almost succeed in dignifying the tragi-comedy 
of the capital. They are particularly beautiful 
when seen from the old ramparts at sun-down; 
the whole range then stands out sharply, a lightless 
expanse of cold blue-green, while the tip of Dama- 
wand suddenly flushes pink, glowing as though 
illumined from within. 

The American Missionaries direct a large and 
prosperous school in Tihran. The pupils come 
from all ranks, and one of the main endeavours of 
their teachers, is to supplant the oriental attitude 




A Street in Tihran 

The snow mountains are just within this illustration at the 

end of the street 




/.- 




The Sardara Pass 
This is thought to be the " Caspiae Portae " through which Alexander pursued Darius 



If 




Travelling in a Fourgon without Springs. Waiting for a Horse to be Shod at a 
Relay on the Road to Qum 




\mM if^t 



^A1 






The River and the Shrine of Fatima, Qum 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 229 

of servility or disdain by a sense of healthy self- 
respect in those from the lower classes, and of 
considerate equality on the part of the better 
born. Fundamental ideas of honesty — which 
centuries of evil-training have obscured in Persian 
minds — are inculcated, and a sound general 
education given; the ground being in this way 
prepared for the acceptance of religious ideas. 
What the results may be from the religious stand- 
point, I do not know; but it is certain that this 
training will uplift every young Persian so for- 
tunate as to enjoy its benefits. Even those who 
disbelieve in Foreign Missions on principle, must 
feel admiration for the educational work done by 
this Mission School. 

The most admirable thing in Tihran is, however, 
in my judgment, the British Legation. With that 
sense of what is fitting which always characterises 
it, the British Government owns and keeps in 
perfect order a large and beautiful park with a 
suitable dwelling for the Minister, and smaller 
houses for the Secretaries and Attaches, and even 
for the English doctor appointed by Government. 
There is no imnecessary show; but grounds, 
carriages, servants, guards, and everything else, 
are maintained in a dignified manner, which 
worthily upholds the prestige of a great empire. 
The Legation staff is, without exception, composed 
of cultivated and finished diplomats. Judging by 
the way I — without any letters of introduction — 
have been received by every member of the Lega- 



230 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

tion, their courtesy and hospitality know no limit. 
At least, they are such as those who have enjoyed 
them, will not easily forget. To British courtesy 
I am also indebted for the possibility of continuing 
my journey. In the present condition of Persia, 
travel from Tihran to the Persian Gulf is only 
practicable with the protection of the British 
Government. Without being requested by the 
American Minister, all the arrangements for my 
safety and comfort from here to Bushir, have 
been made by the British Minister of his own 
volition, with a promptness, civility, and thought- 
fulness, that could not have been surpassed had I 
been a British subject. 

The American Minister occupies a rented house 
in an unfrequented part of the quarter. The First 
Secretary is an experienced diplomat, who does all 
in his power to maintain a proper standard ; 
whereas the Minister is an elderly gentleman of 
merit and estimable qualities, but impolished, 
untidy, and utterly unable to realise the dignity of 
his position as the official representative of a 
Great Power. While all the other Ministers have 
official carriages, the American Minister drives 
about in a common cab from the square, and 
complains when obliged to hire for the day a decent 
carriage in which to make an official call on the 
newly-arrived Turkish Ambassador. This may 
seem, but is not, a matter of slight importance. 
Whatever may be true elsewhere, in the Orient no 
one is respected who does not maintain a certain 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 231 

style and dignity. Their realisation of this vital 
truth is one of the qualities which account for the 
success of the British in the East. The shabby 
standard maintained by the American Minister 
here, is not a question which concerns him as an 
individual alone, inasmuch as it causes the country 
he represents to be looked down upon by all 
Persians. 

The lamentable policy of our Government — 
which gives its foreign representatives inadequate 
salaries, and makes no provision for housing them 
in fixed residences befitting their dignity — renders 
it impossible for any man not possessed of a 
large private income to accept a diplomatic 
appointment. This is of course a cynical negation 
of the democratic ideal we pretend to uphold; 
it also causes American Embassies and Legations 
to lack the established and dignified position 
occupied by representatives of even the least 
important Powers. The world over, American 
Ambassadors are little more than travellers having 
official relations with the courts to which they 
may chance to be accredited. Under these cir- 
cumstances, it is not to be expected that the 
American Legation here can be compared to the 
British, or the French, or even the Turkish; but it 
is reasonable to demand that its chief shall main- 
tain conditions of moderate efficiency. The 
American Minister's intentions are amiable, but 
there is good reason to believe that in important 
affairs, he lacks initiative as much as he does in 



232 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the small matters under my personal observation. 
At twelve o'clock I have found the American 
Legation deserted, — with the chancellery doors 
open for anyone to walk through and take what he 
pleases, but not a servant to be roused by ringing 
and knocking, however prolonged. 

To-day at the Shah's saldm, as the New Year's 
reception is called, my shame for the way my 
country is represented here, reached its keenest. 
The mistaken tradition which obhges our envoys 
to appear at foreign courts in the costume of 
waiters, is regrettable at all times. Good breeding 
demands that a man conform to the customs of 
those around him, as far as is compatible with his 
own self-respect. To decree that our Ministers 
shall refuse compliance with the requirements of 
court etiquette, is an act of provincial bad manners. 
To imagine that the dress of our diplomats has a 
Spartan simplicity, which befits democracy and 
commands respect, is a mistake no one who has 
ever seen them at a European capital, will ever 
make. The truth is : their appearance only excites 
ridicule, tempered by the amount of respect in 
which they may happen to be held as individuals. 
In the days when we sent such men as Franklin 
abroad, the simplicity of their dress amid the 
embroidered extravagance of royal courts, did 
attract attention and often admiration; but it 
should be remembered that this dress was appro- 
priate, in so much as it was — however simple — a 
form of court costume. Franklin did not appear 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 233 

at Versailles in the same clothes that were worn 
by the men who served the table of Louis XVI. 
Our present custom would certainly be condemned 
by the very founders of our country, whose tradi- 
tions it is supposed to continue. No one wishes to 
see American envoys in the elaborate costume 
worn by the representatives of a monarchy; but 
there can be no valid objection to their wearing 
a simple uniform — -unless it also be held "un- 
democratic" in our soldiers to wear uniform. 
Could every American citizen see the sorry figure 
which our representatives cut in the midst of the 
uniformed envoys of the Powers, great and small — 
particularly at the reception of an Eastern sover- 
eign, however enfeebled, — our nation might be less 
indifferent to conditions obtaining in the American 
Diplomatic Service. 

The saldm which gives rise to these reflections, is 
a very disappointing affair; for this year, all the 
spectators — except members of the Diplomatic 
Corps — are placed in a room next to the throne- 
room, where they can see nothing of interest. The 
windows overlook a large courtyard with groups 
of cypress -trees, where the Diplomatic Corps 
faces us in handsome uniforms (with the exception 
of the two American representatives), ranged in 
rows in front of the colonnade where the Shah is 
to appear. A number of soldiers march by, a 
shrill trumpet announces the Shah's presence, and 
a few notabilities in wonderful robes of old Kash- 
mir shawls, make obeisance; then all is over, 



234 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

without our having so much as a gUmpse of the 
unfortunate youth who nominally rules over 
Persia. 

The Royal Palace is a most unattractive place. 
The courts are filled with painted figures of cast- 
iron in a kind of operatic Romeo's costume, and 
with boys of gilt iron offering vermilion cups to 
gilt eagles. The tanks are stagnant and shabby, 
the gardens neglected. The rooms are horrible 
even for one of those monuments of bad taste 
called Royal Palaces; the walls are covered with 
mirrors, and a decoration made of small pieces of 
mirror set in elaborate patterns, the effect remind- 
ing one of a wedding-cake. The furniture is 
without exception European, of poor quality and 
worse taste; there is not a single one of those 
exquisite works of Persian art which in the collec- 
tions of Europe arouse enthusiasm — not so much 
as a fine carpet. Neither the famous Peacock 
Throne — so long erroneously thought to be the 
one built for the Great Moghal and looted by 
Nadir Shah — nor any of the jewels, are now 
exhibited. Local gossip believes them to have 
been broken up and sold in Europe by the present 
government 

Since arriving at Tihran, there has been some 
doubt whether I shall be able to travel from 
Shiraz to Bushir with safety. It appears that the 
khans (great chiefs) are disaffected on account of 
the establishment of a gendarmerie , which inter- 
feres with their levying illegal road-tolls and other 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 235 

forms of extortion. Brigandage is also rife, since 
the robbers, who feared the power of the late 
Shah, have no dread of the present Constitutional 
Government, its weakness being patent. Alto- 
gether Persia is in a condition of anarchy and 
insecurity unknown twenty years ago. Last 
November an unsuccessful attempt was made to 
capture a noted brigand, but order was supposedly 
restored by the bringing up of guns and extra 
troops from Bushir. In February the Swedish 
officer commanding the Persian gendarmes at 
Kazarun (between Shiraz and Bushir) resolved to 
make prisoner a khan who openly sided with the 
forces of disorder. While placing a charge of 
gunpowder at the house-door of the besieged 
khan, the Swedish officer was killed and his body 
thrown down a well. The gendarmes were then 
attacked and driven back to their barracks, where 
they and the widow of the Swedish officer were 
besieged for some days. A young French officer 
— on his way to Bushir on a mission — hearing the 
sound of fighting, entered the barracks under 
cross-fire, and probably saved the Swedish lady's 
life by encouraging the men to hold out imtil 
relief came. Colonel B. — the young American 
who remained after Mr. Shuster's departure to 
try and form a Persian army at Shiraz — led a 
relief force with Maxim guns from Shiraz, but the 
besieged had been relieved before he reached 
Kazarun. There is, however, good reason to believe 
that his arrival saved the town from complete 



236 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

destruction at the hands of the enraged gendarmes. 

It is therefore easy to reahse that this 

road is not a very peaceful place at present; but, 
after communicating with the Consul at Shiraz, 
the British Minister has finally consented to my 
starting. 

Wearied of his inefficiency, I have discharged 
my "artist," Aghajan;and — after a week's search 
for what appears to be a rare creature in Tihran 
— have engaged a guide and interpreter called 
Husayn, a name commemorating the martyr of 
Karbala. He is a diminutive person, neatly 
dressed, with the appearance of a shopkeeper 
rather than a guide; he speaks fairly fluent French, 
and some German and Turkish ; he was born in this 
city of Turkish parents, and has curiously enough 
spent two years in Wiesbaden. I am hoping he 
may prove an improvement on his predecessor. 

As no vehicles for passengers and luggage like 
those in which I travelled from Mashhad, are to 
be hired for the journey to Isfahan, my first inten- 
tion was to take a carriage and send my luggage 
by post in care of a gendarme who is to make the 
trip this week. But I discovered that nothing but 
wrecks of carriages could be hired, since — this 
being a time of pilgrimage — all the decent ones are 
on the road between here and Oum, where the 
shrine of the Imam Rida's sister Fatima is situated. 
At a friend's suggestion, I have therefore decided 
to take afourgon, like the one I had for two days 
on the Khurasan road, put my luggage in the 



ip/ 



J" 0^' ... 




Doorway of the Mosque, Qum 
Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 




The Shrine of Fatima, Qum 

The square is paved with the graves of pilgrims 

Photograph by E Bristow, Esq. 




The Joys of Travel in Persia: What Happens when the Driver's 
Last Pipe of Opium was Strong 




In the Desert near Kashan 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 237 

bottom, and place mattresses on top of it for 
Said and myself. The prospect of travelling six 
days in a waggon with no springs, I find alarming; 
but my acquaintance insists that, with mattresses, 
it will be comfortable. It has been ordered for 
five o'clock to-morrow morning, as the post starts 
for Isfahan the same day, and I wish to keep 
ahead of it in order to avoid difficulty in obtaining 
horses. The ndHb (head of the post service) has 
been menaced with catastrophe if it is late, and 
offered large rewards in case it is on time; I am 
therefore hoping to make a peaceful departure 
from Tihran. 



March 26*^ 
My hopes were vain; at five o'clock, to my 
surprise, the Jourgon was at the hotel door; but 
there were no signs of Husayn, whom I had 
ordered to sleep at the hotel and fetch the waggon 
at half -past four. Said and I loaded the cart, and 
arranged the mattresses on top of the luggage as 
deftly as possible; finally at six o'clock Husayn 
appeared with eyes half out of his head, looking 
as though a last night in the capital had been too 
much for him. I fear that I have jumped from 
the frying-pan into the middle of the fire. 

When we start, it is broad daylight although 
not yet sun-up. The road as far as Shah Abdu'l 
'Azlm is abominable. Over the trees the shrine 
is just visible: a dome with crumbling tiles of 



238 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

emerald and sapphire, a lofty minaret beside 
another cupola glistening with new gilt, and a 
third one patterned with multi-coloured tiles. 
The pinnacles are garnished with storks '-nests, 
where the ludicrous birds clap their bills loudly 
while feeding the young. We soon meet a caravan 
of pilgrims returning from Karbala, a spot hallowed 
by the death and burial of 'All's son Husayn, 
whom all Shi'ites adore almost as a Redeemer. 
The pilgrims are travelling in kajdwa, small 
wooden platforms with a railing on three sides and 
a hood. These peculiar boxes — open on one side — 
are slung in pairs on a mule's back, where men and 
women squat in them cross-legged, swaying about 
like animals in cages. 

The road — rising slowly through barren country 
— has a more civilised appearance than the one 
from Mashhad. There are gendarmerie posts, 
and even toll-gates at either end of a stretch 
of real macadam. My fourgon jolts abominably 
and is most uncomfortable, notwithstanding the 
mattress on which I am lying with my back 
propped up by cushions. The post-house where I 
halt to eat luncheon, stands opposite a walled 
garden, in which the boughs are beginning to wrap 
themselves in a haze of vivid emerald. Winter is 
at an end, for birds are singing and it is really hot. 
In front of me, a man is seated on the ground, 
hammering to bits a white cone — the form in which 
Persian sugar is sold. 

The road now crosses a veritable desert, inter- 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 239 

rupted by fluted ridges shaped like a huge peri- 
winkle shell; sometimes they follow each other in 
serried rows, at others occur isolated and much 
larger. In tone, they are ashes of rose fading to 
pale dove-colour, the level spaces being a metallic 
shade of greyish green. Far behind us, the snow 
mountains — with Damawand's soaring cone — 
are visible through the haze, their bases so faint 
the white peaks seem to float on air. At the next 
relay a horse has to be shod before we can start; 
he has been in the stable for hours, but no one 
thought of shoeing him until we arrived. The 
Persian shoe is peculiar — a very thin plate of metal 
covering the entire hoof, except where a hole is 
cut near the back. This time the horses have little 
bells, whose jingle is audible above the crashing 
of the Jourgon and the clank of its iron chains. 
The dust, caught up by wdnd, whirls across the 
desert like a troop of ghosts. A drearier view 
would be hard to find. When we stop to change 
horses, a broken brougham — held together by 
yards of rope — is standing in front of the caravan- 
serai, with a very smart lady-goat sitting on the 
seat looking out of the window. It is so like a 
scene in Through the Looking Glass, 1 am surprised 
the goat does not speak to me. 

When we leave, a most amusing little black dog 
follows, running about the waggon in every direc- 
tion and refusing to go home. The road rises 
abruptly across a waste of boulders, close to a 
high and rubbly hill, almost violet powdered with 



240 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

brown. Below us, the plain we have just crossed 
stretches away mile after mile, with the distance 
drawing its ridges together into wrinkled lines — 
like waves solidified — varying from deep brown 
to cream yellow. On reaching the crest, there is a 
view out through a gap in the hill to a streaked 
and isolated mountain, really rufous, but now 
darkened to brown by a cloud-shadow covering 
all but the lowest spurs. Around it a plain ex- 
tends as far as the eye can carry, like a torpid sea 
of some liquid heavier than water — one of those 
magical seas in The Arabian Nights. In one place 
deposits of salt make faint lines of azured silver, 
not to be distinguished from the tide advancing 
across desolate shores. This acrid scenery has 
one beauty, constantly changing colour and 
shadow. As we descend, the nearer hills are all 
but black; then — when the sun emerges from 
clouds — they glow with ruddy brown, and the 
mountain of barren earth flushes burnt-siena. 
Then everything fades and grows dim again, until 
nothing but an expanse of false sea far across the 

misty plain still shines like an opal This 

beauty, nevertheless, is of death and desolation, 
suggesting eternal sterility or cataclysmic ravin. 
The sight of it neither cheers nor rests the mind; 
on the contrary, it grows tense with an almost 
physical sense of tautness, until — fatigued by 
monotony — it turns in the void, brooding on 
unpleasant thoughts. 

Gradually as the hght dies, everything in sight 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 241 

grows ashen. By the roadside a caravan of camels 
kneels or strides slowly to drink. Up and down, 
we rattle through the dreariness of barren hills, 
with a few wild clouds trailing across the darkened 
sky. All things suggest gloom. When night has 
blotted out everything but the horses' heads, we 
reach one of the telegraph-stations, where the 
Telegraph Department maintains a decent room 
for travellers. The driver insists that he will not 
stay here, as it is between relays; but nothing can 
force me to go on to a caravanserai. The little 
black dog has followed us all afternoon, and is now 
playing about, waiting to be caressed. Having 
been fed with bits of bread, he decides to lie on 
my feet. It is a warm spring night with doors 
and windows wide open, a welcome change from 
winter and the acrid smoke with which caravan- 
serai chimneys fill the rooms. 



March 27*? 
In the pale light before simrise, I find a rufous 
plain lying below me, with snow-peaks visible in 
the far distance, lustreless and — like the sky — • 
awaiting sun-up to spring into life. The air is 
filled with a strident noise of two baby camels, 
clamouring for their mother to feed them. We 
start without disputes, but at the first relay find 
there are no horses, except a tired team that has 
just arrived. As my animals have only been 
driven a couple of miles, I insist on keeping them 
16 



242 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

for the next stage; the na'lh makes no objection, 
but the driver — who was so troublesome last 
night — is unwilling to go further, and becomes 
so obstreperous, he has to be well shaken before 
starting. 

From here the road descends to the plain, crosses 
it, and ascends again, in an absolutely straight 
line — mile after mile — bordered by iron-telegraph 
poles with cross-pieces at the top, rising out of 
little mounds like enormous sepulchral monu- 
ments. They lend a sinister aspect to the depres- 
sing waste, across which our progress seems eternal. 
To the left, lies what I yesterday took for salt 
deposits, but is really a vast shallow lake, looking 
like a steel surface shining in the sunlight veiled 
by haze that is unpleasantly hot. The road ap- 
pears endless and the plain without limit; when 
at last we begin to climb the opposite incline, it is 
still worse. The heat burns the skin, and the 
ceaseless clanking of the waggon chains, as well 
as the continual jolting, seem unendurable. After 
two hours, during which we have made no apparent 
advance along the unswerving road, a carriage 
comes into sight, crawling toward us until it stops 
to exchange horses. It is a very dilapidated 
brougham with a gendarme on the box beside the 
post-driver; inside are an elderly woman with 
features hardened by experience, a child, and an 
adolescent in breeches and English riding-boots. 
They are talking French, so we converse — while 
the horses are being changed — about the detest- 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 243 

able nature of Persian drivers. They are travel- 
ling from Sultanabad to Tihran. In such places 
curiosity is livehT" concerning those one meets on 
the road, and it is impossible not to wonder who 
these peculiar French-speaking, but obviously not 
French, people are, where they came from orgi- 
nally, what ill fortune sent them to Persia, and 
what their relations are to each other. 

Travelling alike across this endless desolation, 
we start again in our opposite directions, after a 
few moments in which we eyed one another en- 
quiringly, wondering what existence was crossing 
what. In the burning light the road rises before 
us, a line of white along which we seem doomed 
always to crawl. The four gon rattles and creaks; 
the chains jangle; the wheels strike an inequality 
every few minutes, leave the ground, and come 
down again with a terrific jolt. Said and I are 
thrown about like peas in a saucepan. The shak- 
ing and incessant noise make this Persian vehicle 
a veritable instrument of torture. I would pay 
anything to secure even so wretched an omnibus 
as the one in which I arrived at Tihran. Finally, 
after many hopes have been deceived, we reach 
the summit of a barren ridge, where an inscribed 
tablet beside the road indicates the spot whence 
pilgrims can first see the holy shrine at Qum. I 
can discern nothing, perhaps because lacking the 
eyes of faith. 

From here we descend to a place called Manza- 
riyyah, where I arrive exhausted and with nerves 



244 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

exacerbated. A large and elaborate caravanserai 
is visible from where I am resting and trying to 
lunch. Looking at its flat tiled surfaces, I am 
struck with the differences between the architec- 
tures of the North and the South. In northern 
countries, where there is but little sun and that 
comparatively weak, flat surfaces are monotonous 
and bright colours offensively harsh. Fine mate- 
rials — such as stone — being easy to procure, they 
are employed in ways which show their beauty. 
Plans are complicated, and the architectural 
forms both elaborate and diversified by the play 
of light and shade; surfaces are richly carved and 
adorned with salient mouldings that cast deep 
shadows. In the South, materials are usually 
small and common; they are therefore used to 
build a stout core, which is then veneered with 
more precious substances. Carvings and mould- 
ings are almost impossible to make under these 
conditions. The disposition of a building is, for 
this reason, simplified to the utmost : nothing but 
large masses, in arrangements of almost childish 
simplicity, and bare surfaces only pierced by 
absolutely indispensable apertures. Then over all 
is laid a coating of precious marble or jewel- 
like tiles, whose brilliant colours flash in the 
splendour of a southern sun. While perfect, these 
simple and bejewelled buildings are very beautiful ; 
when dilapidated, their lack of solid and noble 
masses, and their dependence for effect on perfect 
surfaces, give them a .shabby and repellent aspect, 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 245 

which the most neglected ruin never has in the 
North. 

From Manzariyyah the road passes down and 
across an undulatory but absolutely barren plain. 
(I have begun to detest even the sound of these 
words.) The sky is veiled in sullen grey. One 
ridge in the far distance is purple, like a moor in 
heather-blossom season; but for the most part, 
everything in sight is the colour of ashes and 
burnt earth. Anything so waste and unlovely as 
these Persian landscapes, I have never seen; there 
is not a tree or a shrub except around the rare vil- 
lages. There is neither the diversity in form and 
colour of the Algerian high plateaus, or even of 
the Sahara with its green oases. To intensify 
the ghastliness, skeletons and carcasses in every 
stage of decay line the road; whitened camel 
bones and skulls are everywhere, and are even used 
to solidify mud walls or dam an irrigation canal. 
Loathsome carrion — once a mule or horse or dog — 
meets the traveller with frequence. At every 
turn disease, decay, and death, stalk unmasked in 
Persia. Journeying with enforced slowness, the 
mind wearies and aches almost physically, until 
it feels as blighted as the land itself. 

After disappointments without end on reaching 
ridges, each of which I thought must surely be the 
last; the minarets and golden dome of Fatima's 
shrine come into view, and after driving through 
dreary streets, the post-house at Qum is finally 
reached. My first thought is to find a carriage 



246 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

for the rest of the journey, as I would spend my 
last farthing, or stay here for months, rather than 
travel another hour in that diabolical fourgon ; 
I am so lucky as to secure a fairly decent diligence. 

The post-house is quite an elaborate 

two-storey building with fairly clean rooms — the 
first public lodging-place at all attractive that 
I have met with in Persia. My room looks down 
on a garden where green grass is growing high, and 
where there are trees plentifully powdered with 
minute blossoms of deep purple, as well as others 
burgeoning with the vivid emerald of their first 
leaves. Around the corner is an orchard with 
walls of dried clay, filled with small trees of feathery 
green, above which rise the bare but empurpled 
boughs of taller ones, or here and there the milky 
flowers of a fruit-tree. This view rests me at 
once, since after such a journey nothing is so 
refreshing as the sight of green nature in all its 
beauty. 

At no great distance beyond the walls, the shrine 
of Fatima looms — with even details visible. First 
of all, I see the upper portion of a great entrance 
archway tiled with blue; on top of it, but off the 
axis, is a small pagoda with a roof of pale green. 
To the left of this are two very tall but slender 
minarets covered with tiles of pale turquoise 
striped with yellow and white. Further back is 
another wall, pierced by an arch and surmounted 
by two minarets like the others only smaller. 
They terminate in open, almost Chinese cages, 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 247 

and are connected by wires from which lanterns 
depend. Still further off and dominating all, 
is the great gold dome that shines and seems to 
leap out of the picture on even so dull a day as 
this. 

Strolling out, a few hundred yards bring me to 
the river, where camels are gathered on the dry 
and pebbly bed, with the mosque towering over 
the houses on the opposite bank. The river-bed is 
spanned by a curious bridge rising from either end 
toward the centre, where there are two pinnacles 
of blue tile. The further end abuts on a gateway 
with the customary tiles, pinnacles, and mosaic 
of a combatant; and is flanked by small buildings 
of brick and plaster, strangely like rococo work 
in Europe. A line of low houses, built of mud 
brick with flat roofs, overhangs the river-bed of 
stones and grey sand, where water runs in divers 
channels occupying only a small part of the wide 
expanse. Camels are drinking, men wading, 
and small boys playing where the muddy rills 
rush through the dry bed. The whole scene is — 
like all Qum — dominated by the aspiring minarets 
and gilded cupola of Fatima's shrine. Looking 
down stream, there is a little settlement where 
a turquoise cone is prominent with green grain 
growing beside it; here the numerous imam zddas 
repose; further away a line of dull blue hills, 
and behind that the majestic cone of Damawand 
soaring into the grey. As the day is overcast, it 
is half lost in the sky ; yet light falls on it somehow, 



248 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

making it brighter than the all but invisible snow 
ranges, over which it hangs like a vision. 

From the bridge a vaulted passage leads to the 
Maidan — a very long and comparatively narrow 
"square" — at the further end of which the dome, 
minarets, and pagodas of the sacred shrine, rise 
picturesquely above the cream-coloured enclosure 
walls. It is as strange a public square as ever 
existed; for it is nothing more or less than a great 
cemetery, where those are buried who seek vica- 
rious sanctity in the proximity of their ashes to 
the tomb of Fatima. There is scarcely an inch 
between the graves, which are marked by slabs 
built with brick, sometimes with an inscribed 
marble tablet; for the most part, however, they 
are nameless, as Orientals display an indifference 
to perpetuating the identity of their remains 
that is wise, but difficult for Europeans to under- 
stand. In one or two cases, the burial-place of 
some notable person is marked by a convention- 
alised lion roughly blocked out in stone, standing 
defiantly on guard over the grave. The surfaces 
of the tombs are uneven, and make walking very 
difficult; but men and women stroll about, display 
wares for sale, or even lie asleep on a funeral slab 
beside their burdens, utterly oblivious of the 
chamel nature of the place. 

The shrine stretches entirely across one end of 
the square, and far to the right. The original 
mosque, where the dust of Fatima rests, lies to one 
side; it is flanked by a large mosque with two 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 249 

soaring minarets, recently built by a great man 
who lived here after his disgrace by Aluzaffaru'd- 
Dln Shah. The golden dome is resplendent among 
the four lofty minarets, much as a great yellow 
tulip might be among loftier lilies. The walls at the 
end of the square, enclose the court of the miodern 
mosque, terminating in great gateways, small domes, 
and minarets. Viewed across this vast mortuary 
expanse, the shrine, with all its slender minarets 
seeking the sky like great arrows, is extremely 
picturesque. Access to it is of course rigorously 
forbidden unbelievers; but I am allowed to walk 
about the court of the madrasa — or university — 
situated in front of the shrine proper, to which it 
gives direct entrance. The enclosure is laid out 
in broad brick walks, with a square tank in the 
centre; the spaces between these paths being 
divided by dykes of earth into small rectangles, 
where there is either tall grass or the stubble of 
that recently reaped. There are a few bare trees 
and three noble cypresses. The arcades running 
along the sides, open into little cells for students, 
now quite abandoned — whether temporarily or 
for all time, who knows? In the centre of all four 
sides of the court, is the usual great portal-arch, 
three of them in advanced decay, but still conserv- 
ing a few tiled panels, where birds and fruit are 
depicted on a background of lovely yellow; the 
fourth is larger and in better repair; a flight of 
steps leads up to its door, across which a chain 
is festooned to prohibit unbelievers, and mark the 



250 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

spot where bast or sanctuary begins — whence no 
man (v^^hatever his crime) may be dragged. 
Through the doorway, I can see the base of a great 
flag-pole, surrounded by a raiHng, in the centre 
of the court; and beyond that an enormous can- 
delabra with lanterns hanging in front of the vast 
door of the shrine, which is concealed by crimson 
curtains looped up at one side. It is irritating 
to be forbidden ingress; however, standing out- 
side, the adventures of that Gamber Ali who here 
took bast, in the wonderful tale by the great but 
little-read writer, Gobineau; and the visit of that 
magnificent Path 'All Shah, the dust of whose 
broad shoulders, wasp waist, and am^brosial beard, 
lies interred within, — are probably far more real 
to me than if I stood in the sanctuary itself. 

At the top of the steps leading to the shrine 
door, a white-headed old man is seated, chanting 
or rather screaming in a constantly ascending 
scale. Husayn tells me he is praising the name 
of 'All and vigorously cursing the 'Umayyad 
Khalifs, according to the custom once universal 
among Shi'ites. This neglected old court outside 
the famous shrine, is a charming place, perhaps 
the pleasantest I have found in Persia; but the 
abandoned cells where students once toiled, give 
poignancy to the recollection of Jami's lines: — 

"The guests have drunk the wine and are departed, 
Leaving their empty bowls behind — not one 
To carry on the revel, cup in hand!" 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 251 

March 28*> 
Last night a wild wind sprang up, whirling the 
dust in clouds. As night fell, the lanterns sus- 
pended between the minarets of Fatima's shrine, 
began to fleck the blackness with dots of gold. 
Then the wind raged in torment through the dark, 
and all night at intervals I heard that passing 
sound of camel-bells, which hereafter will always 
for me evoke Persia. 

When Said called me at four o'clock, it was still 
night with no sign of dawn ; but now — a little after 
five — darkness is in rapid retreat before a cold 
grey light. When my newly rented diligence has 
been made ready, we start across the hardby 
bridge; the river-bed is at this hour so dark a grey 
it almost appears black ; while the tiles on Fatima's 
shrine glisten like the scales of a fish still wet. This 
half-light is, nevertheless, quite different from that 
at evening; crepuscular light suggests death; here 
the rays, even when feeble, have a glitter which 
instantly suggests force growing into life. In the 
bazars it is night yet, with little lanterns hung at 
intervals still burning; a man precedes us on foot 
to clear the way, our horse-bells jangling the 
while. When we reach the outskirts of the city, 
the eastern sky is of gold, and the western deli- 
cately streaked with rosy cloudlets. To one side 
stand four or five octagonal brick pavilions sur- 
mounted by conical roofs, from which nearly all 
the tiles have fallen, but each one crowned by a 
large stork's-nest. When we emerge from the 



252 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

last buildings, the sun is just swinging over the 
horizon through the keen fresh air; all around us 
are bright fields of green grain and tinted hills. 
Before long we pass a white something on the 
other side of a field ; in the distance it looks like a 
pillar of salt hewn into a rough likeness of a 
human form. It is the body of a man who has 
been gached; that is to say, surrounded with wet 
plaster until crushed to death. This barbarous 
punishment is still in use in hodiernal Persia; in a 
land where the great nobles appropriate vast 
sum.s of public money, death was, in the present 
instance, inflicted in this atrocious manner upon 
a man who had stolen a few cucumbers, by a 
gendarme belonging to the force organised by 
Swedish officers ! This particular soldier had one 
moment of humanity, since he shot the tortured 
creature through the head at the end of several 
hours of agony. This horrid object bedims all the 
freshness of early morning, filling me with loathing 
for what human nature sometimes becomes. 

We are now in the midst of waste country, 
skirting a toothed ridge with snow-peaks behind 
it. The road winds upward, with the desert to 
left of us stretching as far as eye can reach — at 
first reddish brown, then buff fading to cream, with 
white streaks where salt deposits occur. The 
colours of this scenery are very fine, but it soon 
grows wearisome, not so much on account of its 
monotony, as because its aridity depresses. Col- 
our is also beautiful in countries less barren; the 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN ' 253 

hues of a great sea of tossing boughs, viewed from a 
hill-crest, are quite as lovely and have the advan- 
tage of being live. This is desolation and death — 
nature in her most sterile, if not her most cruel 
mood. However, it is such a relief to ride in a 
carriage with springs, after two days spent in a 
fourgon, that everything seems pleasant. 

At the noon relay there is not a single horse, so 
we have to wait until ours have been fed and rested. 
When this happens — as it does frequently — one 
is torn between a desire to spare the wretched 
beasts, and eagerness to hurry their rest, so as to 
finish the greatest possible number of the weary 
miles ahead. During the next stage, there are 
more signs of life than usual. Our driver is par- 
ticularly bestialised ; all of them smoke a mixture 
of opium that stupefies their already small intel- 
ligence, and this fellow has probably just had a 
strong pipe-full. No one who realises what their 
life must be can however blame them, since to 
such misery some form of intoxication is a neces- 
sity, not a vice Ahead of us is a mud 

bridge, beyond which the road turns at a right 
angle. When we cross, the driver manages to let 
the hind wheels slip off the bridge; the diligence 
drops, then sways violently from side to side as 
though about to turn over. I seize the side, but 
expect the carriage to right itself, as it has always 
done so on similar occasions. This time, however, 
it gives a tremendous lurch, and there is no doubt 
whatever that it is going to upset. I clutch the 



254 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

railing on the roof, running no particular risk 
since I am on the upper side, but am afraid lest 
my feet strike Said as we go over on his side. He 
is in real danger of being flung out and crushed 
under the luggage-laden roof ; instead of thinking 
about himself, he puts up one arm to support me. 
With another lurch and a terrific crash, the dili- 
gence turns completely over on its side. Fortu- 
nately it falls slowly, and Said is unhurt. When 
we pick ourselves up, we are imprisoned in a cage 
higher than our shoulders. Climbing out, I find 
that the driver has fallen gently from the box onto 
an inclined bank of earth, where he could not 
possibly hurt himself; notwithstanding, he is 
lying on his belly — writhing and rubbing his back. 
Husayn crawls out from the rear compartment 
unhurt but whimpering like a baby. Said dives 
into the wreckage, rescues my camera, and hands 
it to me with the remark, that a photograph of 
this will make a pleasant souvenir of a trip through 
Persia. At first it looks as though one of the 
horses had broken his hind leg, but it turns out 
that he is only pinned down under the traces; 
by some miracle neither carriage-pole, wheels, 
nor axles, are broken. Luckily we are near a 
village, so men who have been working in the 
fields, come to our assistance. Of course the 
driver wishes to raise the waggon with two of 
the horses still harnessed to it, and a third pulling 
in a position where the carriage, in righting itself, 
would probably crush him. After a long struggle 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 255 

the diligence is finally set on its wheels again, 
quite unharmed; I can scarcely believe my eyes, 
for I had visions of staying at the village in- 
definitely, while someone went back to Qum to 
fetch another conveyance. When the luggage 
has been reloaded, and my scattered kit packed 
in the carriage again, we end this break in the 
monotony of travel by sedately driving up to the 
post-house for a change of horses. 

Then we start across a sandy plain, broken by 
green fields of cereal. The going is very bad, and 
the weary animals scarcely able to crawl. The 
sunset is impressive: a wisp of liquid gold, with 
flames of pink whirling across a sky of robin's-egg 
blue. As light and colour die, a new moon mounts 
through the darkness — its entire orb faintly vis- 
ible above a thin white crescent. When night has 
fallen, I tie my own lantern to the side of the 
carriage, since it would be impossible to advance 
otherwise. The sound of wheels dragging through 
sand grows irksome, and the stage seems endless. 
Gradually the smell of verdure, borne on the night 
air, tells me we are passing through cultivated 
fields, so Kashan must be close at hand. The 
road runs through a kind of gully, up whose em- 
bankments the coachman keeps driving, while I 
expect to upset every minute. About eight o'clock 
we reach the post-house only to learn that we 
must drive back to find the rest-rooms in the 
telegraph-station, outside the walls on the road 
by which we entered. Travellers soon begin to 



256 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

look forward eagerly to the nights spent in the 
clean and comfortable quarters maintained for 
their use by the Indo-European Telegraph De- 
partment. Nevertheless I go to bed, cursing the 
day I started to travel in the most uninteresting 
country I have ever seen. 



March 29*? 
We arrived too late last night to make as early 
a start as usual this morning; so I wake to find a 
radiant sun already up. Green fields of grain, 
a-glitter in the sunlight and varying from emerald 
to yellow green, stretch away to the walls of the 
city — the usual collection of mud houses with a 
great dome in the centre, without tiles and looking 
as though it always had been so. Kashan may 
have been an interesting place in the days when : 
"A more industrious and civil People, or a town 
better governed, Persia elsewhere has not"; but 
this morning neither it nor the nearby pleasure- 
dwelling of Shah 'Abbas, can detain me. My 
habitual desire to linger and see all I can, died on 
the road to Tihran; now my only thought is to 
reach places — indeed, I am beginning to sympa- 
thise with persons who boast of the short time 
they spent in going from town to town. Husayn 
manages to have things ready in the morning, and 
so far we have started without disputes and blows ; 
it must however be due to luck, for he is proving 
even a sorrier specimen of manhood than Aghajan. 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 257 

Beyond Kashan the road crosses a real sand 
desert, which makes progress laborious. To the 
right are jagged black mountains capped with 
snow, which seems peculiar on summits apparently 
so low. On the left, yellow dunes of sand un- 
dulate toward a line of small hills: first an 
expanse of violet-grey that appears to rise 
like a wall; then pointed rocks, blackish and 
streaked with lavender, grey, and even white. 
These hills are so dark, it is difficult to re- 
cognise in them anything so suggestive of 
brilliance as violet and lavender; but close scrut- 
iny shows them to be really striped with dull 
shades of these colours The coach- 
man is hidden from me by a wooden partition, 
but I suspect him of frequently falling asleep; 
so Said and I keep putting our heads out, and 
invariably find him stretched on the box in deep 
slumber, from which he has to be aroused by 
shouts and poking with a stick. Probably the 
driver was more or less asleep when he upset us 
yesterday — an experience I have no desire to 
repeat. A large dirty grey vulture, with a loath- 
some neck and beak, is devouring a camel's 
putrid carcass beside the road. Had Baudelaire 
travelled in Persia, his celebrated verses could 
not have described these scenes with greater 
accuracy : — 

" Au detour d'un sentier una charogne inf^me 
Sur un lit seme de cailloux, 
17 



258 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Les jambes en I'air comme une femme lubrique, 

Briilante et suant les poisons, 
Ouvrait d'une fagon nonchalante et cynique 

Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons." 

During the next stage our driver remains awake, 
a fact I realise by the way he chirrups steadily 
to his horses. This real desert of dust, stone, and 
sand, is for some reason — perhaps because it 
really is desert — less trying than the barren scenery 
of yesterday. Occasionally we pass a chain of 
those wells which are so frequent a sight in Persia, 
lining the roads with yellow mounds like giant 
ant-hills. They are close together and connected 
by tunnels at the bottom, making an aqueduct to 
bring water from the hills. Whenever anyone 
wishes to draw water, a rude windlass is placed 
across the well-mouth; apparently this does not 
happen often, for I have seldom seen water being 
drawn. It would seem as though work and money 
might make the barren land fruitful here in Per- 
sia; for it is astonishing to see how patches of 
grain grow in the midst of what appears a desert, 
whenever a man has had enterprise enough to till 
and irrigate it. 

At the relay my driver, like all Persians, never 
says "thanks" for his tip. I am told that the 
Persian language contains no such word ; this may 
be a libel; but it is certain that the poorer class 
has no idea of showing pleasure or gratitude in 
any form. They put their hands together and 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 259 

hold them out to catch the coins, as though they 
were a handful of grain ; then they look to see how 
much they receive, and walk off without a word. 
Only once or twice have I been thanked by a word 
or a smile for gratuities that are — when they have 
driven well — very generous, since it is impossible 
not to feel a great pity for men, however debased, 
who endure so wretched an existence. After 
lunch I rest in the shade of an archway, framing a 
view of tawny desert and hills of rock, across 
mingled squares of verdant grain and some bright 
yellow plant like mustard. Little birds and 
crested larks flit by, twittering softly. A peace- 
fulness lying over all things, gradually begins to 
possess evenm.e. As a labourer passes, the thought 
is borne home that, despite the fact of our both 
being men, there is probably not a single idea 
common to us. People like to dwell on the uni- 
versal nature of humanlt}^ ; the fact is that univer- 
sality is restricted to a few more or less primitive 
instincts, and that the differences between widely 
separated civilisations are far greater than the 
feelings they share. Could we converse, this 
Persian peasant and I would scarcely find an idea 
comprehensible to both of us. What a mystery 
consciousness is! What does the bird hovering 
above yonder grain, experience at this moment, 
and in precisely what do his sensations differ from 
mine? The thought that we are probably both 
emanations of one spirit, brings to mind the Persian 
mystics. How, beyond all words, life must to 



26o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

them have been wonderful, if they were really 
conscious of the actual presence of God, as their 
songs aver. To searching men, for whose consci- 
ousness God is no more than an unperceived prob- 
ability, one hour of so transcendent an experience 
must seem worth the whole of such life as they 
can know. Fantastic musings to entertain in 

the shade beside a Persian road ! 

We are in a sand desert once more, where the 
heat is so great I have to drop the curtains to 
exclude the glare. In the centre of apparently 
boundless tracts of sand, we come upon quite a 
decently built house or station, with a well beside 
it but not a blade of green in sight. Three men 
appear, — what can their lives and occupations 
be in this terrible solitude? On we crawl, to the 
sound of our wheels slushing through sand. Even 
in this desert there are occasional flocks of goats 
cropping some invisible plant. Persian goats al- 
ways seem to graze in a peculiar fashion, stretched 
out in one long line like soldiers under orders. 
On nearing Dihabad, a reddish heifer strolls 
toward us as though curious to see what we look 
like, forcing me to wonder what she finds to live 
on in this desert. A little way outside the village 
the telegraph employee — who has been notified 
by the Kashan office — rides out to meet us. At 
Dihabad there is a pleasant room in the telegraph - 
station, opposite quarters for the employee and 
his family, who of course scrutinise all my move- 
ments. This being only an intermediate station, 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 261 

with a telephone but no telegraph instruments, 
there is only a Persian workman to keep the place 
in order. At the regular stations the operators 
are almost without exception Armenians, whom 
Government — the line is controlled by the British 
Government — was obliged to substitute for the 
Englishmen first employed, since the solitary life 
soon caused them to suffer from mental and 

physical disorders 

The sun has set; the mountains — powdered 
with snow — are almost black, but the hills behind 
which the sun sank are bathed in a greenish haze. 
The sky above them is still lucent, green-gold shot 
with rosy shafts of light. A single star is shining 
amid the radiance of the west, while overhead the 
new moon lies in the vault of pale but intense 
blue like a shard of white. Sheep and cows wend 
through the twilight toward the village; camels 
and a few men are silhouetted against the fading 
sky — the sound of camel-bells and the voice of a 
man at prayer, enhancing the sense of stillness 
and peace. 



March 30*.^ 
This morning it is impossible to leave until I 
discover the stable and there administer to the 
driver those kicks and cuffs which Loti found 
obligatory in Persia. When we start, the air is 
chill, but with advancing day it warms, as we 
turn our back on the desert and climb the hills 



262 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

toward Khafr. Here on a little eminence domi- 
nating the village, is a curious long building like 
a fortress, whose use I can neither divine nor ascer- 
tain. Two dervishes are idling by the road, with 
their high rounded bonnets entirely covered with 
an embroidery of fine Arabic script, making them 
look like a magician's head-dress. From here, 
the road winds steeply upward between bleak 
hills; then a salt desert becomes visible far below 
us — misty white and grey-brown. The road does 
not descend toward it, but turns sharply to the 
right, sinking down to a half -ruined village, where 
there is a fine mosque with a blue dome patterned 
with diamond-shaped ornaments of black and 
white. In earlier times this hamlet must have 
been of sufficient importance to merit the burial 
of an imam zdda within its walls. The most 
superb and curly-haired hog that ever existed 
outside of a Diirer wood-cut, is lording it in the 
courtyard of the relay stable. 

The road now crosses a dreary upland between 
low hills, under a sky of sombre grey. Armed 
horsemen suddenly appear ahead, galloping toward 
us; to be ready for all eventualities, Said and I 
prepare our revolvers, but the riders prove to be 
nothing more dangerous than road-guards — whom 
I believe quite capable of turning robber, were a 
solitary traveller to pass. After a little we reach 
a large village, where innumerable fruit-trees are 
in full bloom. Everywhere they spread their 
boughs over the earthen walls, feathery white as if 




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Said Drawing Water in the Desert 



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The Town of Khafr 




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The Dervishes of Khafr 
The head-piece of the left-hand dervish is embroidered 
with inscriptions 




Husayn and " The Footman " Rearranging the Luggage that had to be Removed 
before Passing the Main Gate 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 263 

powdered with snow ; here and there almond blos- 
soms stand out in dull pastel pinks; behind the 
village on the hill-slope are the ruins of an old 
citadel — like village and hill itself — built of dried 
clay. In this dreary light the blossoms are 
really grey rather than white, and the whole scene 
looks like some vision of a Russian fairy land in 
winter; in sunlight it must typify all the glories 

of spring 

Wind and whirling dust, then rain; a dreary 
plateau of bare brown, where the road twists be- 
tween earthy hillocks ; a change of horses in a heavy 
shower; then a dismal plain with the setting sun 
visible through a rift between mountains and inky 
clouds — a wild and gloomy scene, in some strange 
way reminiscent of those Yorkshire moors which 
the genius of the Bronte sisters has for all time 
depicted. Night has come when we enter Mur- 
chikhurt, twisting between walled fields, then 
skirting the high bastioned walls of the town, 
looming fantastically above us in the feeble light 
of my lantern, with here and there rays of light 
faUing through a hole in the fortification. My 
small and dirty room is situated over the gates of 
a fortified caravanserai, before which a stream 
passes like a moat. 



March 31^.* 
The sound of camel-bells drove sleep away at 
four o'clock, so we make an early start. The road 



264 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

turns sharply to the south, running parallel to a 
distant mountain-range. The first village at which 
we halt, has real municipal spirit, inasmu.ch as 
it boasts a public shelter of dried earth for the 
relief of nature's necessities. It is of course built 
overhanging the stream that supplies the hamlet 
with water. Persians, I have already noticed, 
generally relieve themselves by preference in 
brooks, in which a little lower down they drink 
and wash. From here we have a wonderful fellow 
on the box beside the driver, singing lustily all 
the way; Said calls him our "footman." The 
minarets of Isfahan soon come into sight, then 
we pass between fields with curious round towers — 
dove-cotes I believe. Men are at work, dressed 
in pomegranate robes as well as the sap-green 
ones frequent since Tihran, all of them new for 
the Nawrilz or New Year. 

Entering the town is a perilous affair; the road 
rises on embankments to dilapidated bridges, 
where we nearly fall through or upset ; then passes 
through deep pools of water, and under gateways 
of dried clay, so low the luggage must first be 
removed; our "footman" yelling all the while 
more loudly than any motor-horn in Europe. 
When actually within the town proper, men and 
women fly to right and left of us in the narrow 
streets, gathering up their belongings as best they 
can. We dash through the bazars, small boys, 
running ahead to clear the way in hopes of money, 
while our "footman" shrieks and waves his long 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 265 

pipe. We all but run over two men stripped to 
the waist, beating themselves gently with small 
chains. So comic and noisy an entry into a famous 
city I never made before. At last we reach the 
gate of the British Consulate — to my surprise 
without injury to ourselves or others. That 
Isfahan is an "old city of ruins" I have per- 
ceived; but I have seen no sign either of "its 
mystery," or of "its fields of white poppies and 
its garden of pink roses" of which Loti writes so 
alluringly. 



April 1=.* 
The British Consulate is a charming place in 
which to pass the days, while visiting Isfahan. 
High walls — above the heads of passers-by — • 
enclose an old garden, where chindrs, still bare, 
grow among fruit-trees in full blossom. The one- 
storey white buildings are situated in groups 
dividing the garden into three parts; the smallest 
— without a sign of green — is entirely filled with 
young and leafless fruit-trees covered with pink 
flowers, some of them so dark they are almost 
purple. The inner garden — on which the large 
room I occupy, looks out — has almost no flowers 
except a few vermilion tulips; but the waving 
chindr and almond-trees make it pleasant. The 
Consul is a perfect host, gifted with the keenest 
sense of humour; so wherever he goes, the greatest 
of all boons — laughter — reigns. 



266 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

This morning my first visit is to the Madrasa 
of Shah Husayn on the Chahar Bagh. This famous 
avenue was once a glorious promenade, divided 
into three alleys by rows of plane-trees; palaces, 
marble fountains, and bushes of roses, filled the 
traveller with amazement. In our own time 
Loti has described how on his arrival : " de chaque 
cote de la voie, d'epais buissons de roses forment 
bordure; derriere, ce sont des jardins ou Ton 
apergoit, parmi les arbres centenaires, des maisons 
ou des palais, en mines, peut-etre, mais on ne salt 
trop, tant la feuillee est epaisse." In the reign 
of Shah 'Abbas, this avenue was the scene of what 
a Frenchman has admitted to be "d'elegances tel- 
les que Versailles meme n'en dut point connaitre." 
Here all the splendour immortalised by Persian 
miniaturists really passed by in the flesh, covered 

with brocade and fine jewels They have 

long been dust, and their goodly avenue has 
fallen upon evil days; what even time had spared 
the degenerate Isfahani have in the last twenty 
years utterly destroyed. The Chahar Bagh of 
to-day is not more than a broad road, shabby and 
dusty, passing between tumble-down walls; most 
of the trees have been felled, and those that remain 
have been badly pollarded or are in decay ; at this 
season, there is not so much as one green leaf to 
alleviate the ruin. The three alleys — the centre for 
cavaliers, and those on either side for pedestrians 
• — have long been obliterated; of marble basins 
and parterres there is no sign; not even a single 




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A Dervish in Bukhara 
From a Photograph by Geoffrey Dodge, Esq. 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN . 267 

rivulet runs down the dirty paths ; not a rose-bush 
grows throughout the whole length of the de- 
vastated avenue; no palaces, no villas, no pictured 
balconies, overhang the promenade; nothing is 
left but a neglected road full of dust and desola- 
tion. Half-way down the Chahar Bagh, the 
Madrasa stands, with all the tiles gone from the 
wings and only a few left over the entrance arch. 
The doors however — though battered, defiled with 
dust, and in places stripped of their precious coat- 
ing — are still very fine; they are covered with 
plates of silver repousse- work, beautifully executed, 
and — unlike most Persian art, which is highly 
conventionalised — very realistic in treatment. A 
huckster's stand, covered with grain and vege- 
tables, all but fills the vestibule. Down the middle 
of the court, a long tank runs between the silver 
trunks of lofty plane-trees now denuded. Two- 
storey arcades with fine tiling — each arch forming 
the balcony of a room — enclose the courtyard, 
which the tank and a broad walk divide into four 
parterres. In the centre of one side is the entrance 
to a mosque : a lofty and well-proportioned arch- 
way buttressed by two soaring minarets with 
their terminal cages intact — the whole covered 
with beautiful tiling laid in intricate designs; 
between these a noble dome swells upward, for the 
most part still retaining its exquisitely blue tiles 
covered with scroll-patterns in black and white. 
Anything like the depth and intensity of the blue 
in these old Persian glazes, I have never seen and 



268 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

probably shall never see again, since the art of 

making them is lost 

In the afternoon I ride out with the Consul, to 
watch a game of that polo which was first played 
here in Isfahan centuries ago, but of which the 
modern Persian knows no more than he does about 
the works of Persian art treasured in the museums 
of Europe. To sit a good horse in an English 
saddle, is a pleasure I have not experienced for 
many months. We cross the celebrated but dis- 
appointing bridge of 'Aliverdi Khan. Its great 
length makes it remarkable, but the series of small 
arches which compose it, lacks the effect of wider 
spans ; while the absence of a central or important 
terminal motive, interrupting its monotony, causes 
it to look as though it had only stopped by chance. 
We next ride through a vast cemetery with graves, 
marked by fiat slabs of brick, strewn among little 
buildings with conical roofs, or occasionally a 
tiled dome rising among brown walls and ruins, 
as a brilliant tulip might grow in a barren garden. 
We finally reach a plain, where the dust rises in 
such clouds as completely hide the polo-players. 
Here there is a fine view of Isfahan lying in a bare 
plateau, surrounded by jagged hills and distant 
snow-mountains. The conspicuous features are: 
the lapis-lazuli dome of the Shah's Mosque, and 
the square silliouette of the 'All Qapu, with its 
pillared portico high in the air. The Madrasa 
cupola is also prominent, while here and there 
earth-coloured minarets tower over the city like 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 269 

beautified chimneys. A few trees, just beginning 
to burgeon, spread a tinge of pale green round the 
walls. It is a pretty picture, but not a striking 
one; in my visions of Isfahan, something far nobler 
than this was always evoked by its sounding name. 
On the way back, we ride through the bazars; 
it is dusk with only a half-light falling through the 
orifice of every vault, by which the eye can hardly 
descry what objects really are. This jumble of 
shops, wares, and people, fused into a single pic- 
ture of dull brown, is extremely picturesque. We 
next cross the world-famous square, the Maidan- 
i-Shah ; it is a narrow rectangle of enormous dimen- 
sions, entirely empty except for two low pillars 
of sto^e at either end — the goal-posts employed 
in the games of polo that used to be played with 
unparalleled splendour under the Shah's imperial 
eyes. The conduit — lined with marble and filled 
with running water — which surrounded the square 
in days when Isfahan filled the world with rumours 
of her glory, still remains; but muddy water now 
stagnates between broken stones in what is little 
better than a dirty ditch. Of the avenue of stately 
trees bordering the square with delicious shade, 
nothing remains but a few straggling trees. The 
square is enclosed by an endless succession of two- 
storey arcades of tawny brick ; broken in the centre 
of the southern and smaller side, where the 
entrance to the Masjid-i-Shah thrusts ablaze of col- 
our through the monotonously flat walls. A great 
archway flanked by minarets, is recessed between 



270 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

retreating wings; every inch of the surface glows 
with tiles of lapis-lazuli and turquoise, as intensely 
coloured as, and almost more brilliant than, pre- 
cious stones, A broad band encircles the portal, 
filled with an inscription in superbly decorative 
Arabic script — white letters on a ground of sap- 
phire. In order that the mosque may face toward 
Mecca, it has been built with its axis at an acute 
angle to that of the square and its own portal; 
the effect is peculiar, as in this way the walls of the 
mosque appear behind the arcades, slanting toward 
them far to the right of the gateway, almost at 
the corner of the square ; — first of all, the top of an 
arch between its minars, then a great dome of 
greenish blue tile with scroll designs, then yet 
further to the right a small wooden pavilion 
perched on top of a wall, of which only the back 
or untiled surface is visible. Any endeavour to 
suggest in words the richness of colour and the 
intricacy of design, which turn this mosque into 
one vast piece of jewellery, would only result in 
confusion. The one thing that might suggest 
them, would be to imagine a Renaissance enamel 
enlarged a thousand-fold and set up under the 
brilliance of a southern sun. 

The smaller Lutf Allah Mosque interrupts the 
eastern arcade, with its low dome of brownish 
orange tiles covered with intricate scrolls. The 
northern end of the square is nearly filled by the 
crumbling brick walls and screens of rotting wood, 
which compose the three-storey entrance to the 




The British Consulate, Isfahan 




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Hindu Suwars of the British Consulate, Isafahan 




Courtyard of Shah Husayn's Madrasa, Isfahan 
Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 






The Bridge of 'Aliverdi Khan, Isfahan 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 271 

bazars. The western side is diversified by two 
turrets, and the most curious building in all 
Isfahan — the 'All Qapu. Two storeys of brick 
— the same height as the surrounding arcades — 
project far into the square. On top of this is a 
tdldr or portico, where three rows of wooden 
shafts — slender as poles — support a wooden roof. 
Behind this a donjon-like building rises above the 
arcades and the portico roof. This small and 
singular edifice was a royal dwelling, in whose 
tdldr the Shah sat enthroned — with a magnificence 
probably never surpassed — to watch the games of 
polo or other ceremonies in the square below. 
To look up and see the Shah with all his court in 
the shade of this lofty porch, must have been a 
sight whose like no man will ever see in our world 
of machines and democracy. 

The 'All Qapu and the whole square are ruinous 
and — what is worse — shabby. The reason why 
everything in Persia seems so sordid in its decay, 
is not hard to find. The Persians had little or no 
architectural sense, their talent being decorative; 
their buildings have, therefore, none of that nobil- 
ity of mass and disposition which remains digni- 
fied even when ruined. The beauty of their work 
is entirely due to an intricate veneer of brilliant 
colour; when this has been damaged or lost, nothing 
is left but a skeleton of rotting wood and shabby 
brick, whose neglected aspect only inspires 
repulsion. 

No one can help being impressed by the en- 



272 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

amelled brilliance of the great mosque at the end 
of the square, or fail to realise that the vast extent 
of the Maidan-i-Shah is in itself grandiose; none 
the less Loti's statement that it — "n' a d'egale 
dans aucune de nos villes d'Europe, ni comma 
dimensions, ni comme magnificence," is frankly 
ridiculous. Had he recalled the existence of Rome 
and his own Paris, he might have moderated this 
hyperbole. The Maidan may cover more ground 
than any square in Europe, but it is not to-day — • 
and never could have been — "magnificent," for 
reasons that any architect will instantly perceive. 
The arcades surrounding the square have neither 
scale nor dignity of design, and their endless 
repetition is monotonous. The square was not 
conceived as an architectural whole with a well- 
planned effect. The buildings that interrupt the 
wearisome sides, are placed haphazard and not 
on the axes of the square. Finally the entrance 
to the Shah's Mosque, which ought to dominate 
everything, is recessed instead of projecting beyond 
the adjacent buildings. This belittles the portal 
itself and makes it seem crowded back; it also 
destroys the enclosed feeling that a public square 
such as this, ought to create, producing in its 
place a weak effect, as though the buildings had 
collapsed at one end. To say that this square 
surpasses the perfect conception of the Place de 
la Concorde, or even the picturesqueness of some 
of the Roman piazze, is an error of judgment. 
These faults notwithstanding, the Maidan-i-Shah 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 273 

is a splendid square ; when, in the days of its glory, 
its monuments were intact, the 'All Qapu ablaze 
with the Shah's court, and its whole vast expanse 
crowded with brightly robed polo-players and 
spectators, it must have offered a spectacle such 
as no European city could ever boast. 



April 2*^.'^ 
In Isfahan the beggars, who in hundreds infest 
the streets, offer a horrid spectacle none can escape. 
The misery must be great, but there is no doubt 
that begging is a profession here. Women — 
veiled and unveiled — sit in the dust beside the 
walls, with their children drowsing across their 
knees, or stretched out beside them motionless 
like corpses. They sob or moan loudly, and must 
have learned to weep at command, for their face- 
veils are always wet. Little boys of eight or ten, 
quite naked with their brown skin "laced o'er" 
with dust, shiver as though in convulsions, yet 
manage to run after one, howling. The maimed 
and diseased of course abound, the cries and 
importunities of all these wretched creatures 

being painful to hear 

The Chihil Sutun — or Forty Pillars — was built as 
a throne room by Shah 'Abbas, in what must have 
been a walled garden, but is now a neglected en- 
closure where a few trees still grow. A high por- 
tico precedes a small building with a vast niche 
— the throne-chamber — behind which is a single 

iS 



274 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

room; it stands on the edge of a long tank reflect- 
ing every detail. Its name — the Forty Pillars — 
is a subject of controversy, since the portico does 
not contain half that number; some think that 
the number refers to the columns and their reflec- 
tions ; but as these do not total forty, it is probable 
that forty was used to indicate a large number — 
just as we use the word hundred. The shafts of 
the colonnade are of wood, as slim as masts, with 
elaborate honeycomb capitals. The ceiling of the 
porch still shows traces of brilliant colour elabo- 
rately designed; but of the small pieces of mirror 
which encrusted, as with shining scales, every 
inch of the walls and columns, nothing is left 
except in the recess where the throne was placed. 
Lord Curzon mentions that this coating of mirror- 
work held in place by gilded lines, existed under a 
coat of paint when he was in Isfahan ; but to-day 
the closest scrutiny can find no trace of it under 
the green paint covering the walls. The bare 
columns have fortunately been left unpainted. 
This incrustation with bits of mirror could never 
have been in itself a beautiful decoration; but in 
sunlight the effect must have been gorgeous, when 
the Shah was seated on his throne, surrounded 
by all his court, and every facet flashed with the 
multi-coloured reflections of jewels and brocades, 
while the whole scene lay duplicated on the surface 
of the tank below. Even to-day, as one stands at 
the further end of the pool, the Chihil Situn rising 
atop of its inverted image, forms a melancholy 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 275 

picture full of charm. The pitiful thing is that 
man has done far more than time to wreck the 
glories of Isfahan; wherever I go here, I am re- 
minded of the unconsciously expressive word 
employed by Aghajan in his halting translations, 
when on the road to Tihran my Persian hosts used 
to tell me how I would have admired Isfahan 

before the last fifteen years had '^broken'' it 

In the side porch of the Chihil Sutun, the vandal 
paint has spared two amusing pictures of men in 
the costume of Louis XIII, undoubtedly executed 
in the reign of his contemporary Shah 'Abbas, who 
brought European artisans to Persia. As a result 
Persian pictures in the European style — often of 
the Holy Family — are frequently to be found. 
The large apartment behind the throne-roorn, 
contains a series of wall paintings of the highest 
interest, depicting the court of Shah 'Abbas. 
They represent ceremonies and feasts — even the 
intoxication of this magnificent Muhammadan 
monarch — and abound in curious representations 
of the customs, costumes, and furniture of the day. ^ 
A short walk brings me to the 'All Qapu, which 
I only saw from the outside yesterday. Across 
the gate that gives the building its name — the 
Sublime Porte — hangs a chain wrapped in rags, 
conferring the right of sanctuary on whoever 

' So far as I know, these pictures have never been reproduced ; 
it was therefore a great disappointment, when — after leaving 
Isfahan — I had my photographs developed, only to find that those 
of the paintings in question were complete failures. 



276 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

touches it. Narrow winding stairs, frequently dark, 
lead from storey to storey; how splendid sover- 
eigns in wide-spreading robes ever ascended them, 
I do not know. With the exception of the cere- 
monial portico dominating all Isfahan, the build- 
ing is composed of an intricate collection of small 
rooms, dark recesses, and narrow passages; no- 
thing could be less like what the word palace sug- 
gests to Europeans. It was of course only a small 
part of a vast agglomeration of royal buildings; 
nevertheless the contrast between the splendid 
scale of all public appearances of the monarch 
and the exiguity of his domestic surroundings, is 
as striking here as in all Oriental countries. In 
the open room or great recess behind the taldr, 
two faded but very beautiful frescoes of women, 
in the best style of Persian art, still remain. In 
the Isfahan of to-day, no Persian ever looks at 
them, or lifts one finger to adjourn their speedy 
destruction; whereas in any European capital 
they would command large prices and arouse 
enthusiasm. The lover of Persian art who ven- 
tures into Persia, cannot believe that he is really 
journeying through the country that once pro- 
duced the v/ork he reveres, for no signs of it are 
left ; when he does chance upon such examples as 
these, scaling off the walls among heaps of refuse, 
he almost regrets having seen their degradation. 

Every step through this building, once a marvel, 
is to-day painful. The rooms are, for the most 
part, curiously vaulted; in some there are ceilings 




The Maidan-i-Shah, with the Shah's Mosque, Isfahan 
From a Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 




The 'All Qapu, Isfahan 
From a Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 




The Maidan-i-Shah, with the Entrance to the Bazars, from the ' All Qapu, Isfahan 



. s J.' * 1 






The Lutf Allah Mosque, Maidan-i-Shah, Isfahan 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 277 

elaborately painted; in others walls and vaults 
are covered with a most extraordinary decoration 
— a series of pigeon-holes six or eight inches deep, 
and of varying forms, closed by sheets of plaster 
as thin as cardboard, pierced with a single opening, 
generally shaped like a long-necked bottle. Many 
rooms — particularly the smallest — are covered with 
elaborate ornamentation, made by drawing com- 
plicated designs on plaster, then cutting away the 
background, and painting with a hundred colours 
the slightly raised figures thus left. Birds and 
beasts abound among formal figures, the whole 
composing a rich and fanciful decoration. Every- 
where are faint vestiges or damaged fragments — 
half covered with plaster — of beautiful paintings, 
exposed to wind, dust, and the dung of birds; 
for the windows are either entirely open, or closed 
by the shattered remnants of pierced wooden 
screens. Not long since, the authorities proposed 
that the 'All Qapu should be used to lodge mem- 
bers of the gendarmerie, and its doors were sold 
in Tihran; yet this defiled building must in its 
prime have been a masterpiece of fantastic archi- 
tecture, a fairy dwelling fit for artistically ultra- 
refined monarchs. In its present condition, to 
visit it is shocking, since it can only be described 
by the word sordid that is here almost an obses- 
sion; anger and disgust are the emotions ex- 
perienced, for vandalism — not time — has made 
of this master work a filthy wreck. 

From the Maidan-i-Shah I stroll through the 



278 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

bazars, mile after mile. They are bustling and 
picturesque, although the brown tone predomi- 
nant in light, buildings, and even clothes, detracts 
somewhat from the effect. Some of the men wear 
that lovely shade of light but vivid green, which 
is one of the few enchanting sights in Persia ; while 
from time to time a claret-coloured robe passes 
by. Here in Isfahan turbans are numerous, as 
well as the universal high bonnet — like the mitre 
of a magus — that still retains a vague suggestion 
of the hieratic, altogether out of keeping with the 
shabby wearers. These turbans, twisted about 
skull-caps, are white and tightly wound on the 
heads of merchants, but are more voluminous 
and of green or dark blue when worn by sayyids. 
The prevailing hue in the bazars is none the less 
dun ; most of the robes are camel-colour, the walls 
are dusty brown — in places black with smoke, the 
earth is brown, and the light subdued; conse- 
quently there is no contrast. But the bustle and 
the glimpses into shops or down arched passages 
into caravanserai-courts, strewn with bales or 
filled with camels around a water-tank, make 
the place picturesque. A mule or a horse, occa- 
sionally a camel, pushes its way through the crowd 
of pedestrians, amid loud cries of khaharddr (look 
out!) from its rider. A chain festooned across a 
door, indicates a mosque, of whose forbidden pre- 
cincts the foreigner can in passing see one comer. 
The fruit vendors deck their stalls with strips of 
Turkey -red; their neat piles of ruddy pomegran- 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 279 

ates, golden oranges, and green-yellow lemons, 
being the only things for sale which tempt the 
European. The mere sight of most of the sticky 
dirty condiments exposed in the shops, is enough 
to turn the stomach. Well-ordered pharmacies 
are frequent; generally the most conspicuous 
object is a case of Burroughs-Wellcome remedies, 
displayed in the middle of the counter, surrounded 
by native remedies that would probably make the 
hair of Messrs. Burroughs-Wellcome turn white. 
In many of the shops quite good Chinese jars of 
blue and white are filled with sugar and other 
wares; vendors of most, sherbet, stewed fruit, and 
similar delicacies, display their goods in variously 
shaped bowls of deep turquoise-blue, that — how- 
ever cheap here — are a delight to the eye, and 
would elsewhere be prized. 

Yet despite of all, these bazars are disappointing ! 
What magic used to lurk in their name, above all 
in the words — the bazars of Isfahan! Is there 
not something stirring in the very sound ? Stand- 
ing here surrounded by the reality I can see them 
as they used to appear to me in revery: — lofty 
arcades and long stretches of umber shadow shot 
with quivering rays of warm gold sun; gorgeous 
stuffs, brocaded and brilliant, brought from those 
realms of mystery called the Orient, are exposed 
to view on every hand. Veiled women and slender 
men throng the vaulted ways, where — in shops 
like sanctuaries — the merchants repose cross- 
legged as idols sit. Probably bazars such as these 



28o MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

never existed outside my fancy, since sordid reality 
must here have been present even in the days 
when Shah 'Abbas was king; nevertheless, there 
surely was splendid pageantry in bazars that were, 
at that time, the greatest mart in all the East. 
Those charming personages who graced the great 
miniatures, were once real men, not mere concep- 
tions of an artist; they must have ridden down 
these aisles in garments stiff with embroidery, 
their jewelled aigrettes nodding and sparkling in 
front of fine silk turbans. Sweeping aside the 
part which is only imagination, what a difference 
between the Isfahan of Shah 'Abbas and that 
before my eyes! These vaulted passages, niche- 
like shops, and moving throngs, are not unpictur- 
esque; but the crowd is poverty-stricken, the 
clothes shabby, and the wares on sale common- 
place. Looked at steadily, these bazars are much 
like shopping streets in any country; and of that 
Orient of dreams, which like a mirage always 
recedes the further we travel, there is not even a 

vestige 

These being Nawruz holidays, when all Persia 
idles and dons its best clothes, the Chahar Bagh 
is thronged this afternoon. In the second-storey 
arcades of the Madrasa men are sitting in groups 
cross-legged, precisely as we see them in the deli- 
cate paintings which illuminate the manuscripts 
of three centuries ago. Near the entrance, men 
are seated on platforms smoking (two of them 
opium) under an awning through which sun-rays 










-m 



i... K 



\ 



i 



iH 




Group in the Court of the Chihil Situa, Isfahan 








A 



c 




mmmmMmt^m 




TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 281 

fall on the groups, where green robes make bril- 
liant spots of colour. An unbroken stream of 
pedestrians moves up and down the avenue, 
threaded by men on white donkeys with orange 
trappings. In front of a tea-house, there is a 
plantation of young wand-like trees, bare except 
for a few feathery tufts of green; in the alleys 
between them, men are seated on brown mats by 
threes or fours, just visible through the slender 
stems ; the scene has a charm of colour and group- 
ing worthy the delicate brush of an old-time 
painter. 

The court of the Madrasa is full of men, who 
crowd about, watching us curiously and probably 
with disfavour; at least they do not express it, 
so it is curious to think that only some fifteen years 
ago foreigners were not allowed to sleep within 
the walls of Isfahan, and were obliged to reside 
in the Armenian suburb Julfa. Admirers of Loti 
will recall his vivid description of the way in which 
his determination to lodge inside the city, was 
frustrated. To-day the Isfahan! treat us cour- 
teously, whatever their feelings may be. Wind- 
ing up narrow stairs, we emerge in a small room 
with lattice-windows, behind the arched wall 
cutting off the corner of the court. This arch 
frames a wonderful view of silver chindr trunks 
and jewelled walls and dome, above the upturned 
faces of the crowd following our movements. 
The room is so still and has so lovely an outlook, 
it inspires a wish to retire here with a Persian 



282 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

teacher, learn the language, read the mystics, 

and become annihilated in contemplation 

From the roof, the courtyard filled with the won- 
derful colours of the men's new robes, is an en- 
chanted picture never to be forgotten. The gay 
throng has brought to life yesterday's deserted 
spot. The silvery white of the tree- trunks seems 
to shine; the long narrow tank is variegated, like 
translucent marble, by all the reflected tints of 
walls, trees, clouds, and sky ; opposite us the great 
cupola rests between its stately minars, glowing 
softly as though an immense blossom of turquoise 
and sapphire, between whose blues the contrast 
is like a noble chord of music. Over the entrance 
portal, a wooden pavilion with a pyramidal roof is 
picturesquely perched close to the leaning boughs 
of a pine. The sun is low but still brilliant; 
nacrous masses of slowly moving cloud diaper the 
sky, producing a constant play of light and shade. 
The blue surfaces seem lucent in this amber light, 
and have lost their air of decay — perhaps because 
the living crowd has destroyed that air of abandon, 
which usually reigns in the Madrasa of Shah 
Husayn. The whole scene is so beautiful, it will 
always stand out among my dreary images of 
Persia. 



April 3^.'^ 
This being the thirteenth day of Nawruz, is a 
great festival. All the bridges are thronged with 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 283 

people, watching the water as it whirls past; but 
the finest sight is the Pul-i-Khaju, both on account 
of its architecture and the greater number of 
people which crowd it. Unlike the long but ill- 
arranged bridge of 'Aliverdi Khan, this has an 
important central motive and well-defined ter- 
minals, forming an admirable composition. Its 
piers act as a dam, down which the water falls 
foaming through every arch, while in front of 
each masonry pillar, steps descend to the river 
level. The sun is shining, but the sky is filled 
with grey and white clouds, moving slowly as they 
fling over all things an ever-shifting chequer of 
light and shade; at times they even gather in 
sombre masses, which threaten and then disperse. 
The approaches to the bridge are thronged; in 
each of the upper arches — where the road passes — 
groups are seated, frequently smoking long qcilyuns; 
whilst the steps and piers past which the water 
is roaring, are dotted with men and boj'-s; the 
most picturesque sight, however, is the flat roof of 
the bridge, and more particularly of the central 
pavilion; here men and boys stroll or sit in con- 
stantly changing groups, .silhouetted against the 
sky, with mannered outlines that would have 
delighted Bernini, and startle me by their resem- 
blance to the contorted statues on the church of 
St. John Lateran at Rome. 

Even more beautiful than the movement and 
grouping of the crowd, is its colour. The mass is 
brown, but profusely sprinkled with both the shade 



284 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of brilliant green that delights me more than 
anything in Persia, and a rose-purple seen for the 
first time at Isfahan. This colour is almost iden- 
tical with the enchanting tint so frequent in old 
Persian miniatures; when new, it is like the flesh 
of pomegranates, but after the robe has been worn, 
turns a faded purple like that of red roses past 
their prime. The greens vary between clear 
sap-green and vivid emerald. At Nawruz every- 
one puts on his best or new clothes, so everything 
is unusually fresh to-day. The charm of the 
scene lies, however, not so much in the brilliance, 
as in the particular nature of the colours. They do 
not offer that violent contrast of barbaric shades, 
which is so wonderful under the intolerable blaze 
of sun in desert countries such as inland Algeria — 
the most satisfying part of "the Orient" I have 
ever seen. Here the colouring is bright, yet clear 
and almost cold, with much of the transparency 
and liquid freshness we admire in the art of those 
Persian miniaturists, one of whose works might 
almost be thought to have come to life to-day. 

A few hundred yards further down stream, there 
is a most unusual view. The tawny length of the 
many-arched bridge stretches across the turbid 
river, dashing in white foam down the piers, then 
swirling past the sandy shore. The usually 
neglected arcades are to-day enlivened by the 
bright colours and shifting groups of holiday idlers, 
that from a distance look like garlands and clumps 
of flowers decorating the old bridge. Across the 



l«fc. „«*«».-• .*». 




1'^^9'Mimwr 




The Chihil Situn, Isfahan 




Mauruz Holiday Crowd outside the Madrasa of Shah Husayn, Isfahan 




Holiday Crowd Watching the Foreigners; Madrasa of 
Shah Husayn, Isfahan 







Isfahan! in Holiday Garb at the Bridge of 'Aliverdl Khan. Isfahan 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 285 

muddy rapids, the painted walls and buff gateway 
of some villa are half hidden behind the delicately 
intense green of the first leaves. A little further 
down, crumbling ruins of earth — an Afghan fort 
I believe — stand on the bank in front of the city. 
Looking down the river, a tracery of slim branches 
just feathered with budding green offers through 
interstices a view of two hills, grey-blue and low, 
closing the prospect; between their slopes far 
distant snow-mountains are just visible, hardly 
to be distinguished from a sky there obscured by 
storm-clouds, whose gloom intensifies the brilliant 
sun in the foreground. 

Riding back across the bridge, we enter the 
town and pass through the bazars. Although 
nearly deserted, they are more picturesque than 
heretofore, thanks to the magic with which noon- 
tide sun invests all objects. Sunbeams full of 
dancing motes, dart through every vaulting-orifice, 
as sharply visible as tangible shafts, strewing the 
dusty road with luminous squares. The uniform 
brown of yesterday is diversified by shifting 
light, in which all things have a livelier air. In 
the Maidan, the lapis-lazuli and turquoise of the 
mosque seem to glow and flash, enchanting the 
eye with the richness of their colours. The flag 
on the 'All Qapu flutters gaily in the warm breezes, 
above the wooden taldr and battered walls that 
to-day seem less shabby. Camels stand about in 
groups, or stride slowly across the square in files, 
linked together by ropes hanging in graceful 



286 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

curves, while a camel-driver directs the caravan, 
mounted on the foremost of his disdainful animals, 
— for the nose and eye of a camel express a placid 
contempt for all the earth, which a man's most 
withering glance can never equal. Watching 
them pass in the noon hour, it is almost possible 
for one moment to visualise this vast square, 
filled with the moving splendour it had in the days 
when the subjects of Shah 'Abbas were the most 

glorious in all the world 

Late in the afternoon, the view from the aerial 
portico of the 'All Qapu is very beautiful. The 
light is still intense, but more ambered than at 
mid-day, seeming not so much to illumine as to 
fondle all it touches. The immense Maidan lies 
at my feet, in that diverting perspective which 
comes of looking down. Directly opposite, the 
dome of the Lutf Allah Mosque breaks the long 
fiat expanse of fawn-coloured walls, on which it 
rests like a fire-opal; to the right the Shah's 
Mosque sparkles as though incredible mounds of 
sapphire were spread in the sun. Here and there 
a slender minar — without its terminal cage — soars 
above the stretches of buff wall and domed roofs, 
in one place interrupted by the jagged walls of 
the ruined fort beside the river. Budding trees 
show a little green on the outskirts of the city, 
beyond which two finny hills of rufous earth rise 
suddenly out of a barren plain, everywhere else 
stretching without a break to the distant girdle 
of snow-mountains. Over everything there rests 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 287 

the charm of blue sky, where Httle clouds of a 
soft white float. 

Most of the Isfahan! are promenading outside 
the city, so the square is all but empty, and the 
whole scene dream-like, as it lies in mellow sun- 
flood; but the taXdr resounds with echoes of a 
dervish's voice, telling tales beside a tea-house 
below. His audience is smoking, seated on their 
heels on platforms with low railings, placed in 
rows along the walls and beside the conduit run- 
ning round the square. The dervish stands in the 
shade of one of the few trees still left, dressed in a 
claret-coloured undergarment with an over-robe 
of blue; on his head is one of those high bonnets 
embroidered in black with inscriptions like cabbal- 
istic signs. He recites with a dramatic and highly 
inflected voice, and a profusion of gesture not 
unworthy of an actor, — now standing on a great 
stone, now walking about, or again seated in a 
chair beside the tree-trunk. Here, before my eyes, 
is the living novel dear to all Oriental races, since 
first they had a language; doubtless the story he 
is telling, is some old romance, which centuries 
ago roused the echoes in the then splendid tdlar, 
whence I am now looking out on all that time 
and man have left of the glory that once was 
Isfahan 

To-night there is a young moon, and from the 
terrace in front of my rooms, the Consulate garden 
seems a land of departed spirits. The chindrs 
stand out in rows of white, like ghosts of trees; 



288 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

and in the net-work of slender boughs just gar- 
landed with green, a myriad of pallid stars appears 
enmeshed. The crescent moon floats across a 
tremulous sky of sapphire. 



April 4*.^ 
I have decided to travel from here to Shiraz by 
mule caravan, as there are no longer any relays 
of post-horses on the road — thanks to the brigands 
who burned the carriages and carried off all the 
animals. An Armenian will guarantee to take 
me and my kit in two carriages to Shiraz in nine 
days; but it is doubtful if we should ever arrive, 
and — should anything go wrong — my plight on a 
road where no other horses and no conveyances of 
any sort could be had, would be far worse even 
than it was in Khurasan. I am also tired of the 
unceasing worry as to whether the carriages will 
upset or fall in pieces before the destination has 
been reached; so journeying by mule seems as 
though it might be a relief, despite its slowness. 
At first the chdrwdddr (head muleteer) demanded 
twenty-five tumdns for each mule ; but the Consu- 
late munshl has finally secured a contract for seven 
mules and two horses to carry me and my belong- 
ings to Shiraz in thirteen days, at eleven tumdns, 
five qirdns per beast. The contract states that 
the animals must be in good condition and have 
no sores, a point about which I am obdurate. 
The two horses — for Said and me to ride — are 



TIHRAN TO ISFAHAN 289 

broken down and covered with galls, so they are 
promptly rejected and others procured after end- 
less disputes. When I insist on seeing the mules 
without any pack-saddles, the wiles employed by 
the muleteers to prevent my discovering sores, 
are remarkable. I must have looked at twenty, 
before finding seven with tolerably sound backs; 
on starting I shall have to inspect them once more 
to be sure that others have not been substituted. 
..... Since arriving at Isfahan, I have made the 
pleasant discovery that my interpreter, Husayn, 
was discharged from the service of a member of 
the British Legation at Tihran for theft. 
19 



..„,«,r «*?*>? "^T" 




The Pul-i-Khaju, Isfahan 
The little specks on top of the bridge are Isfahan!, celebrating the Mauriiz holidays 




Old Pigeon Tower near Isfahan 
From a Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 




An Isfahan! Stork with a Feeling for Decorative Efifects 
From a Photograph by E. Bristow, Esq. 




..1. ,^'^i^.^ ^ 










My Lodgings at Mahyar 



V 
ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 



291 



V 

ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 

April 6^*^ 
Although I am not to leave until noon, 
the bustle of departure begins at an early 
hour, with the packing of my kit, the wrap- 
ping of luggage in gunny and water-proof cloth, 
and the sorting of packages into loads of equal 
weight. Sitting in the loggia at lunch, the Con- 
sulate garden is a charming spot, with its silver- 
green trees outlined against a sky of blue, and 
spring sun flooding every corner and animating 
the birds, who^as they flit past make the air musi- 
cal. I am loath to leave this pleasant spot, which 
my kindly host fills with gaiety, and face once 
more the discomforts of the road. Those who 
have benefited by hospitality and pleasant com- 
pany only in civilised countries, cannot appreciate 
their full worth; it is only realised when they are 
enjoyed in such remote regions as these. How- 
ever, since it is not possible to linger, at mid-day 
I take a reluctant departure from a place that I 
shall not easily forget. 

293 



294 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

It has been decided, on the assurance of the 
Governor of Isfahan, that I shall need no guards 
between here and Qumisha. His official declara- 
tion that the road is safe, permits me, if robbed, 
to demand indemnity from the Persian Govern- 
ment ; as the Government has no money and owes 
large sums to travellers who have been robbed 
dtiring the last ten or fifteen years, the value of 
this privilege is dubious. My caravan comprises 
six mules with luggage, one laden with fodder, 
one for my interpreter-thief, two horses — if the 
poor dreatures may be so called — for Said and 
myself, and four muleteers on foot. The speed at 
wiiich we shall travel, may be inferred from the 
muleteers' ability to keep up with the animals. 
Each mule has a small bell, and the leader a large 
booming one, all of which keep up a merry jingle. 
After riding down the devastated Chahar Bagh and 
across the bridge of 'Aliverdi Khan, we wind along 
through hovels, ruins, and grave-stones, until the 
road begins to rise toward the bare russet hills 
that hem in the plains of Isfahan on all sides. As 
we ascend, the city gradually diminishes, while 
the yellow tone of walls and roofs scattered among 
the green, loses its brilliance, fading to a rosy 
dust-colour. The square mass of the 'All Qapu 
still towers picturesquely over all, and the iri- 
descent dome of the Shah's Mosque, with its 
slender minars grouped about it, looms large and 
ablaze with blue. The half-tileless cupola of the 
Madrasa is also conspicuous in paler blue further 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 295 

to the left, while here and there an earth-coloured 
minaret breaks the flat expanse of terraced roofs. 
In the foreground, the succession of imposing 
bridges is clearly visible, barring the river with 
long bands of golden brown. Beyond the city, 
far across the plain where no green seems to grow, 
the hills rise in pale mauve streaked with umber 
and grey. Snow-capped mountains of blackish 
purple and grey — the colour of dark grapes covered 
with bloom — close the panorama with their faint 
outlines. Before me the ground slopes upward, 
brown, barren, and strewn with stones, while to 
right and left jagged hills close in around the trail. 
Slowly their shoulders begin to hide Isfahan, 
until I catch my last sight of the dome — now pale 
turquoise — that from near or far arrests the 
wayfarer's attention. 

The spot where I have just halted, must be the 
same from which Loti enjoyed his first view of 
Isfahan. The white fields of poppy that delighted 
him, are not in bloom to-day — if they still exist; 
but of things yet unchanged his beautiful descrip- 
tion conveys a false impression. He tells how: 
"cette ville bleue, cette ville de turquoise et de 
lapis, dans la lumiere du matin, s'announce in- 
vraisemblable et charmante autant qu'un vieux 
conte oriental." This phrase, like all of Loti's 
words, is a piece of pure sorcery, but is none the 
less inaccurate. The general effect of the city 
wherever viewed, is faint greyish yellow tinged 
with rose, not blue; this last colour being confined 



296 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

to a few bits of ruin by the river, and to the two 
groups formed by the domes and minars of the 
Madrasa and the Shah's Mosque. These cupolas 
dominate everything, not so much by their size, 
as by their brilHant blues, which are in sharp 
contrast with the rest of the dust-coloured city. 
No stretch of the imagination can make Isfahan 
as a whole look blue. A great deal of faience has 
undoubtedly fallen from the monuments, since 
Loti rode from the south to see the now vanished 
"roses of Isfahan"; but even in those days, it 
cannot have been true that beside the two great 
domes — "un peu partout, dans les lointains, 
d'autres d6mes bleus se m^lent aux cimes des 
platanes, d'autres minarets bleus, d'autres donjons 
bleus." In a writer who can by sheer magic of 
style describe a slum so it seems a paradise, such 

exaggerations appear unnecessary 

From the summit where I am standing, the road 
descends to a new and smaller amphitheatre of hill 
and plain. On the further side of the plateau 
below me, the hills rise in russet ranges and iso- 
lated groups, terminating generally in a serrated 
ridge not unlike the dorsal fin of some gigantic 
dragon; indeed, viewed from afar, these hill- 
chains resemble prehistoric monsters couching 
on the plain in spell-bound rows. On reaching 
the level, stony earth gives way to a saline marsh, 
where water oozes forth in little pools and streams, 
rippling in the wind. Far away, the position of 
villages is indicated by pigeon- towers, with a central 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 297 

turret resembling a knob, strewn over the meadowy 
ground like the castles on some Gargantuan chess- 
board. The walls of Qal'a-i-Shur — our first stage 
— are now visible, although still remote, at the 
foot of the mountains. When caravanning in 
Persia, it is customary to make the first stage a 
short one, in order to allow for the delays in start- 
ing, not to mention the possibility of sending back 
for all the things muleteers have forgotten. My 
chdrwdddr did not leave with us, being busied with 
the departure of other caravans, but is to overtake 
us this evening. 

It is nearly five o'clock when we reach the vil- 
lage. The caravanserai is unusually filthy, and 
the courtyard filled with the stench of a horse's 
carcass in advanced decomposition; so I secure a 
lodging in what is, for Persia, rather a charming 
spot — on top of a high gateway, fairly clean rooms 
with windows on every side. I am now writing 
in a covered balcony directly over the gate; I 
look down across the road into an enclosed orchard 
of green young trees, its earthen walls ros}^ in the 
setting sun; further away the plain is covered — 
as though by snow — with a white saline deposit, 
that extends to the edge of a shallow expanse of 
water, where a flock of white birds can just be 
seen floating. At the foot of ribbed hills rising 
suddenly from the level ground, a village nestles 
with a brown dome, a minaret, and several pigeon- 
towers, standing out above the confused group 
of walls and trees. To the left, through the gap 



298 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

where the hills sink into the plain, only to rear 
themselves again in the direction of those we have 
just crossed, — the snow-mountains beyond Isfahan 
draw a faintly silvered outline across a sky of opal. 
The sun has this minute dropped out of sight; 
only the farthest hills still glow as shadows creep 
over the marsh, and the white expanse turns 
greenish yellow; a flock of goats is crowding 
through the gateway below my balcony, with a 
curious huddling motion like the flow of impeded 
water; a little breeze sways the first leaves of 
the young trees, murmuring as it passes; and 
the tinkling sound of mule-bells is heard in the 

distance 

It is now night, and a crescive moon bathes 
everything in mystery-bringing light; the stars, 
brilliant but few, seem carelessly strewn across 
the grey-blue dusk; beyond the indistinguishable 
shadows of the orchard, the salt plain stretches 
its powdery white like frozen water or fields of 
snow. Were the earth everywhere the same, the 
effect would be less mysterious; here where the 
mind knows that neither snow nor ice can be, 
yet by night refuses the obvious explanation, the 
change from colourless earth to a sea of white is 
startling. There is no sound, save that of wind 
moving through road-side trees, whose bare 
boughs in this subdued light form a haze of grey. 
Husayn has begun to play one of those peculiar 
Persian guitars that look as though cut from a 
tree trunk at the point where two boughs — one 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 299 

larger than the other — have grown together, while 
still keeping their separate outlines. Its tone is 
thinner than that of our guitars, more like a man- 
dolin's, but very sweet. Husayn plays fairly 
well, and this music — now gay, now plaintive, but 
always graceful — is the one thing needed to perfect 
the night, as I sit on my balcony, looking out over 
the moon-enchanted landscape, feeling that Persia 
for the first time in some measure approaches 
expectation. 



April 7*?* 
The sun is brilliant, the air fresh and crisp, 

almost sharp The great altitude of the 

vast plateau which is Persia, makes the atmosphere 
pure and bracing; yet, except when a sudden lack 
of breath after a rapid climb recalls the fact, it is 
difficult to remember that the barren plains and 
low hills one crosses so wearily, often lie higher 

than passes in the Alps Out of my 

window the little lake of shallow water beyond 
the white deposits of salt is delicately blue this 
morning, lending the whole scene an I-know-not 
what that refreshes; for here in this arid land the 
very idea of water, above all blue water, seems a 
dream of more favoured worlds. 

The telegraph-inspector, whom I am to accom- 
pany as far as Qumisha, arrived last night; at the 
present moment his mules and mine are grouped 
together, undergoing the long and complicated 



300 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

process of being loaded. Those who have never 
travelled by caravan, cannot realise the endless 
number of packages that have to be loaded, the 
length of time it takes to sort them, the difficulty 
of holding them in place until fastened, the num- 
ber of knots to be tied and untied, or above all the 
quantity of forgotten articles that must be at- 
tached somehow when once the mules are laden. 
At last everything is ready and we start, only to 
halt after a few minutes to let the animals drink 
at a stream crossing the village street. It is im- 
possible to know, either the full charm of clear 
running water, or the torment of not daring to 
drink it, until one travels in parched countries. 
A traveller with European knowledge of the sources 
of disease, would in such places give all the wine 
in the world for one pure mountain-brook, from 
which to take an unlimited draught. This water 
appears innocuous, yet a few yards away, opposite 
the caravanserai gates, I can see that corruption 
is not confined to its court ; in the ditch across the 
road, a shaggy white dog is standing beside the 
putrid carcass of a horse, its paws and muzzles 
scarlet with carrion blood. 

The track, for in all Persia there is hardly any- 
thing that could be called a real road, leads be- 
tween rows of wells like giant ant-heaps, toward 
and through the strangely formed hills enfolding 
the plain we crossed yesterday. It rises gradually 
among the bright russet hues of these trenchant 
ridges, then passes through a valley — if this ver- 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 301 

dure-suggesting word may be applied to the brown 
waste of stony earth stretching before us. After 
a Uttle, the way is barred by a cliff, where a path 
winds upward and around the shoulder of the 
rock, between slaty walls in a diminutive defile 
wrought by torrents descending in ages past. 
The mules scramble up, with their loads banging 
against the rocky sides, and their bells jangling 
out a tune livelier than usual. I have long since 
taken to walking as a pleasanter means of progress 
than sitting my sorry horse, who is outstripped by 
all the mules, and can only be kept with the cara- 
van when a muleteer walks behind him. Here I 
should never have dared trust myself to his 
stumbling paces. 

At the summit a group of men is waiting beside 
a ruined house; they are iujangchi (road guards), 
stalwart fellows on foot, with guns slung across 
their shoulders, some of whom insist on accom- 
panying us. Big and fierce-looking as they are, 
I doubt their bravery ; and consider their company 
in these parts a nuisance, whose only object is 
to extort a two qi-rdn piece at every change of 
escort. My chdrwaddr arrived last night and has 
taken command, riding ahead of the caravan on 
the smallest donkey ever seen. He is called Haji 
'Abbas (the word Haji being a prefix assumed by 
those who have made a sacred pilgrimage) for he 
is a much- travelled individual, who has been several 
times to both Mecca and Karbala. To hear the 
name of the most splendid of the Safawi kings — 



302 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the Grand Sophies of our ancestors — in common 
use for muleteers, is, however natural, amusing to a 
foreigner. Despite his title and his name, I rather 
miss the lively lad in an indigo robe, who yesterday 
took the chdrwddd/s place. 

The sun is now high, and the morning chill has 
been followed by real heat, so walking is no longer 
pleasant. My companion, the telegraph-inspector 
(who has lived for twenty-five years in Persia, 
the greater part of the time alone with his wife 
in a solitary station) entertains me with tales of 
adventure and attacks while travelling, that make 
me realise how unsettled a country Persia has 
always been. The plain we are crawling across, 
as the air wavers with heat like veils rippling in 
the wind, is of course a desert on which nothing 
grows except pale tufts of dusty straw. The sur- 
face of the ground is lacquered by a kind of crust, 
grey-white tinged with rose; its ashen hue is 
enhanced by the brown serrated hills, streaked 
with orange and splashed with sanguine, that 
surround us with masses of rock and crumbling 
stone, deeply graven with wavy lines. Far away 
to the left, w^here the two ranges close in around 
the valley, a mirage has formed ; while between the 
sinking hills, a mountain seems to float — a tawny 
island on a blue-grey sea of mist. Hard at hand, 
the ruined walls of an abandoned village are rosy 
in the sun-flood. Turning sharply to the right 
down another gorge, then ascending a hill-shoulder, 
Mahyar — our halting place — comes into sight. 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 303 

The sun is now flaming; far ahead the outhnes of 
our caravan are distorted by waves of heat into 
what appear elongated visions rather than men 
and beasts. When we reach the high walls of the 
ochre town, Husayn the inefficient is waiting with 
a smile to tell me he has found a lodging. We 
enter by a gate in a swelling tower, so narrow the 
mules strike their burdens against the sides, and 
have to be pushed through; then turn and twist 
between the mud-walls of a half-ruined village. 
We stop before a kind of vault, soot-black and 
unspeakably foul, which Husayn assures me is the 
best room to be had. I insist that he can find 
better, and that, if not, I will sleep on the ground 
outside the walls; so Husayn reluctantly searches 
the hamlet, and soon returns in triumph. Fol- 
lowed by muleteers and mules, bumping by most 
perishable possessions against every possible 
obstacle, we wind through the narrow streets, until 
we reach a filthy enclosure filled with slatterns 
and their half-naked brats. The rooms are almost 
as loathsome as the others; I am on the point of 
taking them in despair, when a big fellow in the 
wide blue trousers worn in these parts, begins to 
make such a disturbance I think he must object 
to my lodging here. M}'' intelligent interpreter 
volunteers no information, but repeated questions 
finally extract the news that the man is telling me 
he knows a clean house. For the third time we 
wander through the lanes of Mahyar, and at last 
discover what seems a palace, particularly after 



304 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

it has been swept. My room, like all buildings 
in this land without beams, is roofed by an almost 
Gothic vault with penetrations. The walls are 
full of those rectangular recesses that, in the 
Orient, replace furniture and cupboards; over the 
door there is tracery to let in light. Everything 
is whitewashed, with indigo lines around all the 
architectural forms. Over the point of each arch 
a conventional design, and in every niche a vase 
of flowers, is painted, all in primitive colours — 
yellow, green, vermilion, and ultramarine. On 
the spaces between the recesses, small mirrors are 
pasted in the centre of painted designs with scarlet 
flowers of unknown species, at which wonderful 
birds are gazing from below — whether cocks or 
nightingales I cannot tell. The flamboyant chim- 
ney-piece is painted bright gamboge. The floor 
is covered with rugs, and in the corners there are 
piles of bedding neatly wrapped in cloths. Blue 
and white bowls, bottles, and sherbet spoons of 
pierced wood, are ranged on the shelves formed 
by the vaulting arches, while caskets and a coffer 
bound with gilded tin stand in the recesses. Alto- 
gether it is a gay and surprisingly clean little 
place, quite habitable when once my kit is 
arranged. 

In the vaulted shed next my room, a man is 
carding wool; I hear uninterruptedly the curious 
rhythm of his work — thump, thump, thump — 
then the twang of wire vibrating. He is seated 
on the ground cross-legged, grasping an implement 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 305 

like a primitive harp with only one string, of which 
the shaft is as thick as a man's wrist. The left 
hand holds the upper half of this instrument over 
a heap of wool, while the right strikes the wire 
with a wooden pestle, causing it to descend among 
the wool, which it catches and flings off in small 
bits, submitted to this process over and over again 
until sufficiently fine. The women — who do not 
veil here, but wear gowns and head-coverings of 
calico, usually scarlet with white dots — are seated 
on the ground with their children in a circle, 
making a meal of some green plant looking like 
dandelion. One little tot toddles about in a thor- 
oughly Persian fashion; that is to say, in a flowing 
robe and cloak of calico left wide open, so the 
whole of his brown and naked body is visible. 
Donkeys are standing or rolling in the courtyard; 
occasionally a tinkle from one of their bells makes 
itself heard above the wool-carder's cadence. 
Across the flat roofs, I can see an immense cliff 
overhanging the village — a sheer wall of reddish 
rock streaked with grey. On the top a pointed 
stone is perched, looking from here like a large 

golden falcon 

By candlelight my little room is very pictur- 
esque, with its porcelains and coppers reflecting 
the glow and casting soft shadows. My door 
frames a lovely lunar landscape — a mysterious 
sky of tender blue, low cupolas just catching the 
moon-rays, walls that are only flat black shadows, 
and ground of pearl-grey chequered with shade. 



3o6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

A diminutive donkey has just strolled up, and is 
standing motionless with his head inside the door, 
fixedly watching me. The only sounds are the 
pawing of donkeys' hoofs, the tinkle of a bell, 
the murmur of women's voices at intervals, or 
occasionally the cries of children and the wail of 
an infant. From time to time, a man or a woman 
walks into my room in silence, ostensibly to collect 
some of the belongings left behind when I dis- 
possessed them, but really in order to inspect me 
— for I am always the object of much curiosity. 
However they are quiet and polite, so I do not 
rebel until the head of the famity stands in front 
of me for nearly five minutes, looking at me stead- 
ily. The donkey's gaze I thought rather friendly, 
but this is too disconcerting to be endured. 



April 8*.'^ 
When I rise, the courtyard is already filled with 
women and infants — many of the mothers mere 
children themselves, and the wool-carder is pre- 
paring to commence work. While the mules are 
being loaded, always a lengthy process, I climb 
onto the roof, where a view of the entire village 
is to be had. As in all Persian towns, there are 
no windows in the street-walls; for the Oriental 
cloisters his domestic life in a manner that must 
be seen to be believed, and windows on a public 
way might offer glimpses of the interior to passers- 
by. The streets are bordered by blank walls, 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 307 

only pierced by low doors or wide portals; which 
gives the hamlet an air of secrecy. When my 
caravan starts, the sun is just rising beside the 
lofty cliff towering above us. The air is fresh 
and the sky limpid. As we pass another village, 
where tree-tops nod above the roofs, the walls 
are radiant in the young sunlight. A line of trees 
appears to be on the march toward a distant 
group of hovels. My companion, the telegraph- 
inspector's animals, a string of mules my chdrwdddr 
is taking down to Shiraz with us, and my own mules 
are all ahead; so we form a caravan of some im- 
portance. A number of the mules have large bells 
that boom as they walk, making a bass to the 
higher tinkle of the smaller bells. 

The scenery is much the same as yesterday, 
only more sombre. Tiny black specks moving 
in the distance, betray the presence of flocks 
grazing. Before long, the mountains close around 
us in an amphitheatre. From slopes of sandy 
earth, rocky summits emerge suddenly; in some 
places they look like gigantic rocks, sharp as 
arrows, rising out of a sea surging wildly about 
their bases; in others, both flanks and peaks re- 
semble the waves of some ocean aeons ago im- 
mobilised at the height of its fury. To the right 
— whither our road is now bending — a cleft ap- 
pears in the range, through which snowy mountain- 
tops are visible in the far distance. At the foot 
of nearer hills, a group of the now familiar but 
always picturesque pigeon-towers indicates a 



3o8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

village. Films of cloud have long been gathering, 
until the sky is all but covered. In this funereal 
light the chain of rocks ravaged by cataclysms 
assumes a sinister aspect, with its eternally sus- 
pended waves all but barring our egress from the 
desolate plain. Gradually bending to the right, 
we come in sight of trees and walls that must be 
the outskirts of our halting-place, Qumisha. 
Suddenly a turquoise dome appears above a gentle 
rise hiding the rest of the building, so that the 
pointed cupola seems to pierce the earth by magic 
— like a bulb of incredible size and colour. Qu- 
misha itself can now be seen in a plain between 
two lion-coloured spurs towering above it, as 
though dragons on guard. 

As we approach, trees show above the walls, 
covered with foliage, not pallid like that of the 
poplar, but profuse and deep-hued, such as we 
see at springtide in our own northerly countries. 
The building whose dome appeared a few moments 
since in so curious a fashion, proves to be a mosque, 
where is buried an imam zdda, brother to the Imam 
Rida, who was so obliging as to distribute the 
members of his sanctified family over a wide 
extent of territory. The turquoise cupola, with 
its band of deep violet -blue, dominates an irre- 
gular mass of all but colourless walls, standing 
out like a jewelled iris against a rose-streaked 
cliff, that beetles behind so close as almost to touch 
it. In front of the mosque is a row of small pollard- 
willows, with twigs just tipped with green, spread- 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 309 

ing out from the trunks like slender fingers. Be- 
yond these stretches a shallow pool of water — if 
anything as formless may so be called — its surface 
a lovely robin 's-egg blue, ruffled by the slow pad- 
dling across of a pair of wild ducks with rust-brown 
bodies and arching heads of snow-white. 

The road now winds through a graveyard, 
which — like all I have seen in Persia — is no more 
than a piece of barren ground, where small piles 
of brick and stone are heaped in the utmost dis- 
order. Sometimes a tiny slab bearing a short 
inscription, is set in the ground or placed on edge 
like a tombstone; generally there is only a rect- 
angle of dust-coloured brick and a heap of rubble 
to mark a grave. These burial grounds recall that 
sinister phrase, "the potter's field"; and their 
neglected disarray is almost more depressing than 
the collection of wire-wreaths and hideous monu- 
ments which make European cemeteries so horrible. 
The roadside is strewn with millstones, cast there 
when and why — who knows? Then we begin to 
enter the town proper, between blind walls and 
half -fallen vaults; for Qumisha, like so many of 
these cities and villages once populous, is to-day 
half in ruins. These decaying streets, where 
people still dwell among stretches of ruin, are 
melancholy and typical of the Persian, both in his 
decadence and his indifference. After twisting 
through a labyrinth of lanes, we reach the tel- 
egraph station with its three clean rooms over- 
looking a court, where a freshly blossomed 



3IO MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

fruit-tree seems to reproach a larger but still 
budless tree. 

My charwdddr proposes "breaking a stage" 
to-morrow, that is to say doing two, so wishes to 
start at half-past three in the morning. As my 
companion is only going a single stage further, 
he does not care to leave so early. It is necessary 
to procure an escort, since the road from here to 
Abada is reputed dangerous; a scribe is therefore 
brought to write a letter to the governor. He is 
a wonderful old fellow with a beard that is flaming 
red, except for an inch of white around the face. 
He seats himself on the floor and writes with a 
reed pen, holding the paper — Persian fashion — 
on the palm of his hand. I am told that the pecu- 
liar custom of twisting the end of each line upward 
in Persian letters is a sign of honour ; and that the 
more exalted the recipient, the higher the end of 
the line must rise. There is, however, no way of 
ascertaining whether this be true or not; for Per- 
sians appear singularly ignorant in regard to their 
own customs. Only this morning a man insisted 
that the abandoned but still numerous pigeon- 
towers were built to lead air into subterranean 
chambers used in summer! As a matter of fact, 
they were built for pigeons on a peculiar plan, 
arranged to facilitate gathering the manure for 
the fields 

The governor's reply has just been brought, 
saying that if I leave while it is still dark, his 
suwdrs will be unable to see robbers, and cannot 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 311 

guarantee my safety. This is of course a pretext, 
since the last time at which brigands would be 
on the watch, is just before daybreak; but I am 
obliged to yield, and, after endless palaver and the 
sending back and forth of messengers, agree to 
start at four-thirty. 



April g^^ 
Four o'clock. The moon must still be up, since 
a light like liquid crystal blanches every object 
in the court, while the sky itself is suffused with 

pallid radiance. The moon set while I 

was dressing, for impenetrable shadow holds 
sway at present. Above the roofs, the now un- 
rivalled stars glitter in heavens of the deepest blue. 
Haji 'Abbas is squatted against the wall fast 
asleep, waiting for my luggage to be packed. In- 
stead of loading at once the packages that have 
been ready all night, he waits until the last valise 
is closed. When I am prepared to start, only one 
mule is laden, and everyone has to be stirred up. 
The tufangcM are for a wonder waiting for me, 
thanks to the telegraph ghuldm (servant) whom I 
sent to fetch them. 

When we leave, it is after five o'clock and broad 
day, though the sun has not yet risen. We wind 
through crumbling ruins, called the streets of 
Qumisha, and slowly reach the open. The great 
cliff of violet-brown looms over us, outlined against 
a luminous sky, greenish white near the horizon. 



312 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Just above this tremendous wall, two or three 
shred-like clouds sail past, white on the upper 
edges but smoke-coloured below, like those in the 
skies Claude loved to paint. Indeed the w^hole 
scene, with its combination of lucency and masses 
of unlighted brown, recalls pictures in which the 
Lorrain contrasts the light of a setting sun with 
expanses of brown or grey shade. Everything 
is still unillumined here where we are moving 
tmder the far-flung shadow of the hill-cliffs; but 
across the plain, where sun-rays have already 
struck, the hills are flushing rose, as they seem- 
ingly spring into life. However often seen, noth- 
ing is lovelier and more mysterious than the 
phenomena which attend the appearance of a new 
day. That the withdrawal of the sun makes no 
change in the essence of things, is difficult to be- 
lieve; since when first we see them again, in the 
lustreless light before sun-beams have touched 
them, they appear lifeless or at best asleep. The 
next moment, when the first shafts of sun have 
fallen on them, they seem to leap into a form of 
real life, like disenchanted sleepers in old tales. 
A moment ago every object was as plainly visible 
as at present; yet everything was dull and cold. 
Bathed in sun, every object now seems living, 
while the colours that a moment since were flat, 
quiver and glow. This lovely effect is very 
fleeting, and has already begun to subside, when 
the sun swings into sight above the hill-top. 

The plateau — bounded on three sides by lines 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 313 

of hills, unbroken except where Qumisha lies in a 
cleft — is less barren than heretofore, being streaked 
with pale green and dotted with villages. Over 
their walls and scattered trees, the pigeon-towers 
stand out; many of them quite large buildings 
with crenellations and a small turret in the centre 
of the crowning platform — rather like models of 
the Castello S. Angelo. Clouds gather until the 
entire sky is obscured; even when the sun shines 
through a rift, the light is ghostly. A sharp wind 
is blowing and the cold unpleasant, a reminder of 
the height at which the Iranian plateaus lie. 
The country has now grown absolutely desolate, 
with a pall of uniform grey stretching over it, 
whilst wild gusts of wind buffet man and beast 
in a manner very trying to nerves. On either 
hand unlovely hills hem in the narrow upland as 
far as sight can reach. Overhead a sky of lead; 
in front a drab and desert plain; dreariness wher- 
ever the wearied eye may turn ; not a living thing 
in sight; no change to divert the mind, nothing 
but— 

"Miles, and miles, and miles of desolation! 
Leagues on leagues on leagues without a change." 

Anything so depressing I have never experienced. 
This featureless scene lacks even the grandeur of 
that "Land of Fear and Thirst" — the Sahara, — or 
the horror of more blasted landscapes. In its 
oppression, the mind turns on itself in a steadily 



314 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

recurrent chain of painful thoughts, as a mill- 
stone might revolve without grist to grind. 

Having managed to get a little ahead of my 
caravan, I stop to drink a hurried cup of tea and 
bolt a hard-boiled egg; then hasten on again at a 
mule's pace. Crawling along through scenery 
that knows no change, my thoughts move with 
the metallic click of machinery steadily returning 
to the same point. A green shrub, or a small and 
all but colourless flower growing under dried 
grass, is an event; any diversion, a relief. When 
I can bear sitting motionless on an uncomfortable 
saddle no longer, I walk until my legs ache. Ever 
the same eternal dreariness before my eyes; time 
weighs on me like a mountain of lead; minutes 
seem hours, and hours days. 

Ammabad is now visible, but far off — at least 
an hour's crawl. A few black specks develop 
into three pedestrians and a man riding on a don- 
key that would not reach his waist. They stop 
to talk with my escort ; then Husayn comes up and 
tells me they have said that robbers were seen 
this morning on the road between Ammabad and 
the tower a few miles further on, where the first 
post of gendarmes is stationed ; that there are only 
three tujangchl at Ammabad, so it would be impru- 
dent for me to attempt to reach Yazdikhast this 
evening; and that I ought, therefore, to spend the 
night at the village, and send for gendarmes to 
escort me in the morning. This story strikes me 
as nonsense; but, Ammabad being a noted haunt 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 315 

of brigands, situated close to the boundary of the 
province of Fars, where the Consul at Shiraz re- 
ported trouble, — it is none the less disquieting. 
After holding a council of war with Said, I decide 
that it is best to push on; since the gendarmes 
would never come to Aminabad, as they would 
then be outside their province, and staying the 
night in the village would only give the villagers 
time to notify the robbers — if there are any — of 
my presence. 

At Aminabad I tell Haji 'Abbas that we shall 
proceed; he is in a blue funk lest his mules be 
stolen; no amount of explaining that I am no 
more anxious to be robbed than he is to lose his 
animals, and am going to push on for his sake as 
much as my own, is of any use; I have, therefore, 
to resort to Persian methods, and shake him 
soundly until he realises that I am master. Then 
the tufangchl crowd around, trying to dissuade me; 
the translation of my sarcastic enquiries, whether 
they are afraid of the brigands or not, finally puts 
some life into the oldest of the seven, and the 
only one who shows a semblance of manhood. 
Taking out the Governor of Qumisha's order, I 
insist that the four men who have come the last 
stage, shall accompany me as well as the three new 
ones; to this they finally consent, after much 
excitement and a request for extra tips. Hajl 
'Abbas now says we must start on the instant, if 
we are to proceed ; but I maintain that I will have 
ten minutes in which to swallow a bit of food; 



31 6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP"^ 

after gulping it as fast as possible, we leave about 
three o'clock. 

The ground now rises and falls in gentle un- 
dulations, concealing the rest of the plain. The 
seven road-guards keep running to the top of a 
crest, scanning the distance — one of them with a 
pocket telescope, — then trotting off to the next 
eminence; while Said and I watch every direction, 
our revolvers ready for use. The old man is 
marching down the road by himself, far ahead of 
the caravan, carrying his gun on his shoulder with 
quite a martial swing. Journeying in this fashion 
is a welcome change, since it is rather exciting; 
but I cannot free my mind from a suspicion that 
the whole alarm has been contrived by my escort 
in order to obtain large gratuities. I may be 
unfair to them, but a few weeks in countries 
such as this annihilate all belief in disinterested 
motives. ' 

Before long we reach the gendarmerie tower, 
where I dismiss the tufangcM with the tips pro- 
mised — though probably not deserved. For once 
they appear pleased, and have enough politeness 
to thank me, the old man with especially good 
grace. The gendarmes come out, salute, and — 
with the exception of two left on guard — start to 
accompany my caravan. They are not like the 

' Within a fortnight, however, a man claiming to be an Ameri- 
can subject, was robbed, on this part of the road, of merchandise, 
whose value he estimated — in his telegram to the authorities — at 
eight thousand turnans. 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 317 

smartly uniformed fellows in the neighbourhood 
of Tihran, differing from the road-guards only in 
their more honest faces, and the brass badges 
with the Lion and the Rising Sun fastened in 
front of their high bonnets. Like all the men 
since Isfahan, they are taller and better built 
than the inhabitants of North Persia. Several 
are wearing the big trousers so distinctive of this 
part of the country. Of dark blue linen, they are 
made so wide as to flop about the ankles like 
divided skirts. Their high bonnets and long 
robes — almost reaching the knees and held in 
place by a twisted girdle — give the men, however 
shabby, an almost Assyrian silhouette. As they 
walk, the outer garment blows back, discovering 
a cotton under-robe flowered with delightfully 
archaic patterns. 

The road now runs down the plain in a straight 
line, flanked by telegraph-poles. As the sun 
descends, everything turns dark brown; overhead 
the shroud of grey has broken into separate 
masses, between which sunbeams occasionally 
slip. Ahead of me, two of the gendarmes prostrate 
themselves with their foreheads on the earth, 
while they recite the evening prayer ; then a mule- 
teer rushes to the roadside, rubs head and hands 
with earth — there being no water for the cere- 
monial ablutions, — and kneels in the direction of 
Mecca, which in this case chances to be that of 
the sinking sun. In the distance a very poor old 
man and two women, journeying alone and on 



3i8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

foot through this deserted country, are seated at 
rest beside the road; when we pass, the man begs 
me to have his Httle bundle carried on one of my 
mules, then hobbles after us as best he can. 

After rounding a monticule, a yellow line in the 
far distance indicates the situation of Yazdikhast, 
the fantastic city completely surrounded by 
chasms. Having been warned of its deceptive as- 
pect when seen from afar, it is no surprise to have it 
appear level with the plain, and not towering above 
it. Suddenly a shaft of sun-light leaps through 
the river clouds, touches a clay-built dome, turning 
it brilliant ochre, then fades away. Before long 
the sun sets, leaving the hills and plain a deep 
golden brown. To the right an empurpled cloud 
overhangs the jagged hill-tops, its edges glowing 
with dull crimson; to the left a moon, nearly full 
and already high, is clearly visible in a sky of 
dull violet barred with grey films of cloud. From 
every direction, flocks of sheep and goats are 
moving through the brown light toward the city 
gates, in lines of brown and black undulating 
across the brown plain like immense caterpillars. 

As we draw nearer, the vague outlines of the 
city gradually take shape. It is now close at hand, 
yet there is no sign of cliff or chasm. We are 
traversing a graveyard, that is — by way of excep- 
tion — quite neat. As we pass, two gendarmes 
take a handful of pebbles from a depression in one 
of the tombstones, and hold them while saying a 
prayer for the deceased. The dried-clay buildings 




.y 



■,\- 



T 




V 




A Typical Persian: My Landlord at Mahyar 







■.M^- 




■J* 



A City of the Apocalypse: Yazdikhast 




n 



f^ 




Early Morning at Yazdikhast from my Lodgings 




Natives of Yazdikhast with the Hlad Tufangchi in the Centre 



ISPAHAN TO SHIRAZ 319 

of Yazdikhast are at present only a few hundred 
yards distant, yet still appear to be built on the 
plain we are crossing. Suddenly the road swings 
nearer, disclosing the real situation of the town, 
separated from us by a wide and very deep ravine. 
In times tmknown, a great river must have worn 
a vast canyon, several hundred feet deep and over 
a quarter of a mile wide, through the friable 
ground, lea.ving an island of more resistant earth 
near one of the banks. The top of this curious 
formation is therefore on a level with the sur- 
rounding country, — hence that appearance of the 
town, which from a distance is so surprising to 
travellers familiar with photographs of Yazdikhast 
perched high in the air. Near at hand the preci- 
pices are visible, rising from the river-bed far 
below — every inch of the space they bound, 
covered with houses, the inextricable confusion 
of whose walls, windows, and balconies, overhangs 
the cliffs of clay. The town being built of the 
same earth as its base, has the same colour; so 
to distinguish the line where the work of nature 
ends and that of man begins, is almost impossible. 
The fantastic pile of city and cliff is thrown into 
sharp relief, and seems to shine in the swiftly 
waning light, all its surfaces a peculiar shade of 
luminous grey, as though the dust-coloured walls 
had been covered with a transparent glaze of very 
pale acidulous green. The broad floor of the 
chasm is sown with grass, now a dull expanse of 
metallic green with mauve reflections. Turning 



320 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

sharply to the left, we reach the piece of open 
ground between the new and the old town; the 
latter being only accessible by a narrow bridge 
across the here much narrowed gorge. No railings 
protect the flimsy wooden structure, over which 
a herd of goats is hurrying to push its way 
through the narrow gate. It is after seven o'clock 
when I dismount; we have been fourteen hours 
on the road, practically without a halt — a terrible 
stage for men and a worse for mules. 

After several unsuccessful attempts to find a 
lodging, I am led to the further end of the new 
town, through streets crowded v/ith flocks, jost- 
ling and undulating like the waves of an umber 
sea — to a house which the village chief reserves 
for his guests. Crossing an enclosure strewn with 
stones, I find myself in a porch almost on the edge 
of the cliff. The scene that greets me is indeed 
fantastic. Directly opposite, the moon's stately 
orb rides the sky, although daylight has not yet 
disappeared. In front of me the stony earth for 
a few hundred yards falls steeply away, then stops 
abruptly. Far below, the canyon-floor spreads 
out, with its narrow stream rushing through a 
chequer of untilled earth and sharply contrasted 
fields of green. Beyond that, towers the side of 
the gorge — a sheer wall of black shadow, above 
which a dull blue line of pointed hills is visible. 
Despite still lingering day, the moonlight dazzles. 

The lodgings are of the sorriest; only one room 
is habitable, and that has mud- walls and a ceiling 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 321 

of which one half has already fallen, while the 
other threatens to crush anyone foolhardy enough 
to pass the night here. Since travellers in Persia 
resemble beggars, inasmuch as they have no 
choice, make the best of it, I must. No meat and 
almost no provisions of any sort are to be had; 
this, combined with the filthy resting-place at the 
end of so harassing a day, proves almost too much 
even for Said's good humour. My dinner and 
the manner of serving it, are better left without 
description; but the wonderful sight before me 
drives away all thoughts of discomfort. 

It is now full night; in the abyss below I can 
only distinguish a confused diaper of lighter and 
darker blacks, beyond which a wall of intense 
shadow rises to where a chain of mountains less 
vigorously black is outlined — apparently on the 
same plane — against a sky of darkest ultramarine. 
Rising slowly toward the zenith, the enrondured 
m.oon now reigns in undisputed radiance, cast- 
ing sheet after sheet of cold and glittering light 
down in the void which yawns below my feet. 



April 10*.'^ 
A flood of sun. The whole canyon, with its 
fresh fields and silvery streams, lies in the soft 
glow of earliest day; and the cliffs now show the 
curved surface that centuries of flowing water 
have hollowed, until the upper edge to-day over- 
hangs the base. Walking to the verge, over which 



322 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

my lodgings all but slide, I can see the walls of 
the old city towering above the gorge, while, nearer 
by, the houses of the new town descend to the 
bottom on gentler slopes, in rows of clay-built 
roofs one below the other. When I go out to 
take photographs, a curious but politely silent 
crowd dogs my steps. Crossing the bridge to the 
old city, the narrow span v/ithout any protection 
on either side, makes me giddy since I can see the 
depths below. Through the archway, there are 
glimpses of a narrow street between high walls, 
soon turning into a tunnel where the houses are 
built across it; but there is no time to go further. 
Clambering along the pebbly slopes opposite the 
city in the direction from which v/e came yester- 
day, I finally obtain a new view as curious as a 
man could wish. 

Yazdikhast rides in this vast chasm quite close 
to one of the sides, like an unimaginable galley 
stranded at the recession of some long-forgotten 
flood. At the prow this ship of rock is so narrow 
as to seem fragile; then it sweeps backwards with 
long cliffs now draped in shadow, above which is 
piled the confusion of the houses. The road that 
my caravan is to follow, passes around this end of 
the town, then winds up the opposite precipice. 
The river is spanned by a bridge, curving across 
it with a rose-grey series of brick arches. At the 
further end stands a neglected caravanserai, over 
whose gates somebody has scrawled "Cadbury's 
Pure Cocoa" in white letters, that would make 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 323 

Loti snarl with rage. As we climb upward, the 
chasm on the further side of Yazdikhast is hidden, 
and the town seems built on the edge of the plain, 
its long line of roofs and houses overhanging the 
base of the cliff in a giddy fashion. 

When we reach the table-land, this city of the 
Apocalypse soon disappears, as the eternal plains 
stretch before us between monotonous chains of 
umber hills. This never-ending upland of dusty 
grey tinged with green is indeed — 

" A land that is lonelier than ruin 

Waste endless and boundless and flowerless . . .' 
Where earth lies exhausted." 

Creeping drearily across it day after day, seems 
a penitential rite full of distress and dolour. At 
first ample clouds were herding on the hill-crest; 
then a chill wind began to drive them across the 
sky, until now it is hidden behind serried rows 
of sombre cumuli. There is not a living thing in 
sight except my caravan and the escort — seven 
men on foot and three on horseback. Not a 
blighted tree, not even a shrub on which to rest 
the eye. Suddenly two crows and then a swallow 
wing past; when lost to sight their absence grows 
painful. The very hills lour, drawing together 
until they seem to bar the valley ahead of us. 
Above them, a horrid range of dull black mount- 
ains, streaked with white where the snow lies in 
wrinkles, stretches out its monstrous length like 



324 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a slimy python. As the hills close in, I feel 
entrapped : — 

"Grey plain all round; 
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. 
I might go on; nought else remained to do. 

So, on I went. I think I never saw 
Such starved ignoble nature " 



If only I had a real horse, I could gallop ahead 
and change my thoughts by rapid motion: but 
the poor jade I am riding, cannot even keep up 
with the mules, unless my heels beat an unceasing 
tattoo on his lank sides, or a muleteer walks behind, 
chirruping and slapping the wretched animal in a 
way that is unendurable. To break the monotony 
I have told Husayn to take his guitar, which he is 
now playing — its strumming all but drowned by 
the chime of mule-bells. He has just broken into 
the matchiche with Persian amplifications; the 
incongruity of hearing this vulgar tune in so re- 
mote a desert, is amusing. Then he strikes into 
an old Persian air, whose silver tinkle transforms 
my ennui into a gentle melancholy. 

Shulgistan, the end of our stage, is now within 
sight. Crowds are streaming out of the gates, 
and advancing toward us. It seems they expect 
the arrival of a fellow townsman, returning in 
sanctity from a pilgrimage to Mecca. On dis- 
covering that it is not he, they turn back in dis- 
appointment, the green, mauve, and pomegranate 
robes of the men among the women's black mantles, 





Shulgistan at Sunrise 




My Caravan Leaving Shulgistan 



^-^v 




The Way Haji Abbus, my Charwadar, Preferred to Ride 



j'.l ,'' 



'^* ■■"%>=«? 






'>"*W5(. 




An Abandoned Garden: The Pavilion at Sarmak 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 325 

making a picture against the ochre walls. When 
I alight, they crowd about me in striking groups. 
Outside the town, the small turquoise dome of a 
rude mosque rests on the dried-clay walls, like a 
jewelled and inverted bowl. Through a narrow 
gate, and between the blind walls of narrow streets, 
where women and children squat in the filth of 
corners, I am led to the house of the village chief, 
where two — for Persia — possible rooms are to be 
had. An old woman is set to sweep them, raising 
clouds of dust with the small besom that is the 
only broom known in this country. When my kit 
is being arranged, women sit on the roofs in 
huddled rows like penguins, while men and boys 
lean against the courtyard walls — allwatchingevery 
movement I make. To anyone afraid of publicity, 
I recommend as training a short trip in Persia, 

Neither eggs nor milk — and of course no meat — 
are to be had, robbers having looted the town 
a short time ago. The inhabitants — I am told — • 
intend to abandon the place, as the inroads of brig- 
ands are frequent, and their taxes remain high even 
when they have been despoiled. While I make 
what takes the place of a meal, a half-starved 
greyhound, with a tattered blanket tied round him, 
slinks in and watches me reproachfully until fed. 



April II*? 
During the night, I was roused several times 
by the noisy attempts of a particularly lively cat 



326 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

to get through the cracks in my ill-fastened door. 
No amount of shooing and shouting could drive 
it permanently away; it kept crawling between 
the rotten boards, and then bounding around the 
room in a manner that filled me with sympathy 
for the old monks, whose cells often received 
nocturnal visits from acrobatic devils. At last 
I had to rise and barricade the door with a kit- 
bag. I have grown quite accustomed to having 
people wander into my room at all times, to 
the incursions of dogs, hens, and ordinary cats, 
even to the presence of a donkey's head 
swaying its long ears in the doorway; but a 
fiend in the form of a cat leaping loudly around 
the room in the dead of night, is still somewhat 
disconcerting. 

When dressed, I take my elusive way on foot 
through the tangle of lanes, and out of the gate 
in the walls with which every Persian village is 
fortified; leaving the caravan to follow as soon as 
ready. A pool of water has formed in front of 
the Httle mosque — or is it a tomb? In the deli- 
cate light of early day, the varied blues of the 
rough tiles covering the cup-like dome, glitter 
above me and shine reflected in the water at my 
feet. Donkeys amble past in twos and threes, 
followed by men and boys on their way to labour ; 
then a comical flock of tiny brown kids trots by 
in charge of a woman wrapped in her veil. The 
town is quite picturesque, with its crenellated 
walls, its ruined pavilion over the gates, and its 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 327 

groups of small flat domes on every side — all of 
them built of sun-dried earth. 

Loti always refers to these walls of earth — the 
only building material used in Persia except in 
great monuments — as being " gris-rose''; to my 
eye their colour is a shade of brown. It is too 
warm to call even "rose-grey," since grey is al- 
ways cold. When wet or in shadow, the walls 
are pale burnt-siena tinged with rose-madder; 
in sunlight they are like the neck-feathers of a 
turtle-dove. Only when seen in the far distance 
could they possibly be called grey ; even then, they 
are to me dust-coloured — that is to say, the faintest 
possible shade of yellow. At all times the rosy 
tinge is prominent and very charming. 

While I am sitting on a bank, trying to note the 
exact colour of Persian walls, my caravan files 
through the gates. To-day the sky is without a 
cloud, pure cobalt fading to blue-grey where it 
touches the mountains. The same plain of end- 
less brown, the same hills of sepia. The dun vista 
is closed by mountains slanting across the plain; 
even they are unlovely, in form commonplace, 
in colour a dark dirty grey, streaked with livid 
white where snow lies in the folds. Everywhere 
dreariness to the eye, and weariness to the spirit. 
Haji 'Abbas, my chdrwdddr, owns a diminutive 
donkey, which he rides most of the time with his 
legs tucked under him, and a small oil lamp stuck 
in front of the saddle. A ghuldm returning to the 
bank at Shiraz, has joined the caravan; he also 



328 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

bestrides a white donkey so small his rider's feet 
almost touch the ground. One of the muleteers 
has withered arms, hanging from his shoulders 
like the flappers of a turtle. The caravan of 
merchandise that Haji 'Abbas is convoying to 
Shiraz, generally takes the road with mine; which 
is pleasant, since to watch the large number of 
animals is diverting and the tinkling of the bells, 
dominated by the lead-horse's booming note, the 
only cheerful sound all day long. 

In my pocket there is a copy of Loti's Vers 
Ispahan, which I have not re-read entirely since 
it first appeared. As we jog along, I take it out 
from time to time, and read a page or two, shading 
the leaf with my note-book. I am divided be- 
tween anger and admiration. How romantic he 
makes this detestable country seem! It is true 
that he warns travellers they must sleep : " entasses 
dans une niche de terre battue, parmi les mouches 
et la vermine"; and says frankly that "qui veut 
venir avec moi voir la saison des roses a Ispahan, 
. . . se resigne a beaucoup de jours passes dans 
les solitudes, dans la monotonie et les mirages." 
But the very sound of his enchanted words makes 
the prospect so delightful, no one can possibly 
conceive the reality. Sorcery of precisely this 
nature, no other writer possesses; he is able to 
travel through the dreariest and most disappoint- 
ing of all celebrated countries, and make it seem 
a land of wonders. His inimitable powers of 
expression lend colour to the commonest objects, 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 329 

whilst the ear is ravished by the cadence of his 
jewelled phrases. To read such works is a delight ; 
but when the truth stares one in the face, revul- 
sion is intense. Loti's book makes hodiernal 
Persia all the sadder, and travel here the drearier ; 
for — even when allowance has been made for the 
part which imagination plays in his writing — it 
shows how much has been lost in the comparatively 
short time elapsed since he made his journey. 
Then the cities, although ruinous, retained some 
traces of splendour; and of the ancient customs 
and costumes, there were still survivals. The last 
vestiges have now vanished from a land that has 
lost its distinction without gaining true civilisa- 
tion. Persia is to-day only a grinning skeleton 
decked in the tatters of its glory and galvanised 
into a semblance of life. Travelling here is like 
a visit to that little museum in Paris, where a 
glass case holds the mummy of Thais of Alexan- 
dria; — faded robes, bare bones, and a few tar- 
nished strands of blond hair clinging to a horrible 
skull. Ghastly reHcs such as these hinder, in- 
stead of helpingusto visuaUse the vanished beauty. 
The names Isfahan and Shah 'Abbas evoke a 
vision of greatness such as my eyes shall never 
see; but when I pace the solitary Maidan-i-Shah 
or move across these weary deserts, all the glory 
that once was Persia, is hidden by what lies before 
me. 

From these distressful reflections I am aroused 
by the sight of trees magnified by the mirage-like 



330 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

vibrations of the air. It is Abada, where there is 
a telegraph-station with clean rooms — an oasis, 
here as eagerly sought as any I have seen in the 
Sahara. On entering the town, the earthen walls 
are so rosy one expects to see through their breaches 
something other than abandoned orchards; but 
the leafless poplar-trees — like fine besoms of silver 
green — and the fruit-trees on which leaves and 
blossoms mingle, delight a desert-weary eye: 
Finally the telegraph-station is reached; and 
through a gateway of bright yellow clay with 
white trimmings, crowned with ibex horns, I enter 
a yellow courtyard neatly kept and well planted, 
off which there is a white and comfortable room 
with tables, chairs, and other luxuries. Like all 
travellers on this road, I bless the British manage- 
ment of the Indo-European Telegraph Depart- 
ment. This pleasant and well-kept resting place 
is made particularly agreeable by the courtesy 
of the telegraph operator, and the receipt of a 
telegram from my compatriot. Colonel B. asking 
me to stay with him on arriving at Shiraz. Pro- 
visions are plentiful but unpleasant, since at 
Abada almost the entire population is said to 
suffer from syphilis. 



April 12*.^ 
Cats in Persia must certainly be possessed of 
devils, for their craft is more than feline. The 
first news to greet me this morning, is that a cat 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 331 

has stolen the chicken cooked to carry with me 
for lunch! I should never have thought it pos- 
sible to dislike any animal, but a certain hostility 
toward cats — at least toward Persian pussies — 
begins to possess me, particularly as they are not, 
according to anticipation, long-haired and hand- 
some The sun is shining brightly in the 

trim court of the telegraph-station, with its walls 
of yellow clay so brilliant it might be pure ochre. 
A few plants of gilly-flower and iris are in bloom 
already. Everything in sight testifies to the 
operator's care; and as I look out between the 
print curtains — real curtains ! — of my clean white- 
washed room, it is all so neat and restful, I can 
scarcely bear to think of what awaits me on the 

road 

This morning the scenery is not so dreary as of 
late. To the right the hills merge in the plain 
at a spot beyond which the snow mountains rise 
abruptly without intermediate ranges. To the 
left are barren hills and snowy peaks. From both 
sides the mountains curve toward each other, 
diminishing the while, until they meet behind a 
hill with two summits like a camel's back. A veil 
of misty blue hides the distance. The land is 
partially cultivated, strewn here and there with 
patches of varying green. Small fortified vil- 
lages are frequent ; riding between their high walls 
of clay, over which the tree-tops are just visible, 
makes a break in the monotony, and hastens the 
passage of slow-footed hours. In other countries 



332 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

this would seem but a sorry landscape; here it is 
interesting. 

The phenomenon that I have observed every 
morning, is now taking place. On starting, not a 
cloud is to be seen, or at most a few shreds of 
white drifting across the mountain-tops. Then 
about ten or eleven o'clock, they begin to float 
into sight, banking up on the rocky peaks; whence 
they move insensibly across the sky, until it is 
covered with an all but unbroken mass of grey- 
white. At the present moment, they are flocking 
across the hills, in groups of shining white, dap- 
pling the ground with shadow. 

To-day's stage is very short, and almost before 
I realise it to be possible, Surmak comes into 
sight; the ground has grown barren once more, 
changing from brown to ashes of roses with stony 
patches of palest lilac. Ahead of us the clouds 
have dropped long banners of rainy vapour, trail- 
ing half-way down the mountain flanks. Ruined 
walls, roofless but pierced b}^ arches, attest the 
fact that we are approaching the village ; otherwise 
it would be difficult to judge the distance, since 
the air quivers with heat as though the finest of 
silver gauzes were waving between us and Sur- 
mak. To the left among green fields of grain, a 
great mound of earth stands out, sculptured by 
wind and the waters of the rain — doubtless once a 
citadel built for security against robber nomads. 
Donkeys cross our path from every direction, 
bearing enormous burdens of what is here used 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 333 

for fire-wood — a low withered shrub plucked with 
all its roots — which makes a short bright blaze 
and exhales a pleasantly aromatic odour. The 
loads are so huge, they hide all of the donkey 
but the head and legs; indeed, at a distance they 
seem to move by themselves on four small legs. 
The donkeys are — like ourselves — making for the 
gates, through the ruins that precede and often 
constitute the larger part of all Persian villages. 
These expanses of waste land and fallen dwellings 
add to the sadness of travel here; since they pro- 
duce on arrival an impression of entering, not 
an abode of the living, but a ruin where homeless 
wanderers have sought refuge. 

While Said and Husayn go in search of lodgings, 
my caravan halts in front of a narrow gate, through 
which the donkeys and their loads have to be 
skilfully pushed. Carrion always strews the ground 
around these villages, for to death and decay all 
Orientals seem indifferent. Here the bloated 
carcass of a dog is lying on its back among the 
boulders, with rigid legs standing out above the 
enormous putrefaction of its belly. The inhabit- 
ants flock out to see that curious animal, a Euro- 
pean — ^the walls soon being lined with silent but 
eager spectators, some of whom gather in knots 
about my mules. Before long my emissaries 
return to tell me all the rooms are quite impossible ; 
they are, however, accompanied by a youth who 
says he can show us the way to a decent place. 
As he has a Sun and Lion badge on his bonnet, 



334 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

he must be some sort of a gendarme; his long robe, 
once wine-coloured, is now faded to a beautiful 
shade of amethyst. As he walks ahead of us, with 
his wide trousers flapping about his heels hke a 
skirt, his amethystine garment and the rose- 
coloured walls of clay make a subtle harmony 
no painter would disdain. 

Poplars rise above the walls, slender shafts 
apparently of polished jade, that would lend 
poetry to any scene. Far away I can see the 
brown sharp hills, the louring clouds, and the plain 
flecked with shadow, rising slightly like a sea of 
indescribable hue — neither brown, nor grey, nor 
green, nor blue, but a faded mixture of all. Our 
way twists through narrow streets imprisoned 
between high walls of clay, over which the blos- 
somy boughs of fruit-trees hang. Several women 
pass with uncovered faces, but shrouded in long 
veils of black or dark blue, held tightly around the 
head, whence they float down and outward to the 
ground. With their heads modelled by these 
mantles, and everything but their faces concealed, 
they look like tragic madonnas strangely out of 
place in Persian villages. We must still be out- 
side the town proper, since we keep skirting a 
lofty and bastioned wall, that is very picturesque 
with its jagged crenellations and crumbled 
surfaces. 

After many windings, I dismount before a 
narrow gate in the midst of high walls. On enter- 
ing, I stop short with surprise — for I find myself 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 335 

in a Persian garden, once a prince's plaything, 
now an abandoned but charming ruin. In the 
centre stands a small pavilion, built — it is true — 
of dried clay, but neatly and with narrow pilasters; 
on each side three arcades closed by doors give 
access to a room, flanked on either side by the 
entrance to a vaulted passage. A trellis carrying 
vines not yet in leaf, surrounds the building. 
Needless to state, every door is open, and the 
whole place falling into decay. Still it is clean, 
and in the midst of that enchanting thing, a walled 
garden, which, though neglected, is still filled 
with young fruit-trees, curving their long twigs 
under the white or rosy weight of blossoms. 

In front of my room, at the foot of a low terrace, 
is a little stream that fills the air with the murmur 
of moving water, as it flows into the garden under 
an arch in one wall and out of another on the oppo- 
site side. It is bordered by two rows of stately 
poplars, but this being Persia, all the finest ones 
have just been felled, and are now lying in a tangle 
on the ground ; some already stripped of their bark 
look like bars of golden ivory; those untouched 
are a pale silvery green, so polished they seem of 
marble. It is a sorrowful sight, but so is almost 
everything in Persia. A high wall of golden earth 
closes the view ; above which I can see the purple- 
brown flanks of a barren hill against a sky, where 
one white cloud is almost crushed beneath a bank 
of threatening grey. The note of a bird comes 
fluting from time to time ; the wind sighs through 



336 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

swaying poplar-tops; and always there is the 
liquid music of the brook rippling up to my 
ears 

The village chief has just sent a gendarme to 
express his regrets that a broken leg prevents his 
visiting me; and to bring me a tray with a plate 
of pistache nuts, a bottle of wine, and an enamelled 
cup in which wet cotton holds in place a beautiful 
bunch of purple iris; he has also sent two guards 
to sleep outside the house to-night. In their 
sense of hospitality and courtesy, the Persians 
of to-day still show a refinement worthy of their 
past. 

Sunset from the terraced roof of the pavilion. 
On all hands a jumble of high walls, now brown, 
from among which trees rise in profusion; a kind 
I do not know, spreads its bare boughs very far 
in an olive haze of just budding leaves ; below them 
are abundant blossoms and foliage, where fruit- 
trees grow, and here and there poplars pointing 
skyward. Beyond this, the brown walls and 
loftier towers of the fortress-village; above them 
a group of the slenderest poplars, still without 
leaves, swaying like ghosts in the breezes. Be- 
yond the umber town, but so near as apparently 
to touch it, are the equally umber mountains, 
mantled with snow and canopied by clouds. 
Looking westward, the sun has just sunk behind 
deep blue hills, between sombre piles of bluish 
cloud, whose blazing edges frame luminous ex- 
panses of green-gold sky. Eastward, long films 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 337 

of grey are flushed with rose. Spring casting a 
semblance of life and grace over a crumbling town 
as day fades; what an epitome of this hope-for- 
saken land! 

Night-time. The moon is up, but hidden by 
clouds, through which only the dimmest of lights 
can pass. The felled poplar-trees, prostrate in a 
net-work beside the brook or among the still 
standing trunks, gleam like blanching bones. 
Words cannot render the ghostly effect of this 
pallid coppice outlined against a livid sky, where 
a few stars peer through rifts in the clouds. The 
rippling cadence of the stream and the whirring 
sound of a tree-toad or nightjar, echo through 
the silence. It must have been among such 
desolate groves as this, that the souls in Virgil — 

"ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram 
perque domes Ditis vacuas et inania regna.' 



April 13*.'^ 
Last night, for the fourth time, I suffered from 
the malice of Persian cats. Said had gone out 
after placing a chicken for to-day's luncheon on a 
high chimney-ledge, and — as he thought — com- 
pletely barring all means of ingress. However, a 
wily puss managed to crawl through a broken 
pane of glass, and jump some six feet onto the 
shelf, where she knocked over a lighted candle, 
setting fire to a precious package of tea, and burn- 



338 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

ing the handle of my revolver. She was about 
to depart with the cold chicken, when I heard a 
clatter and rushed in, just in time to save the food 
and extinguish the fire. Cats really do exaggerate 
in Persia! 

The voices of the two gendarmes on guard out- 
side, waked me at dawn; the first sound I heard 
was a nightingale's song, as liquid and as fluent 
as the melody of running water that floats up 
from the hidden brook. Now the sun is just 
beginning to shine over the high walls, touching 
with gold one side of the pavilion, where the 
coral-tipped blossoms shine in the first fresh light. 
The fallen poplars seem to cling like suppliants 
about the shafts of those still standing; alas! 
before many days have passed, they too will ring 
with the blows of axes, waver, and then crash to 
earth. The next traveller to enter this ancient 
garden, will only find a bare wreck without grace 
or green. 

After we have wound out of the tortuous streets, 
the plain shelves upward like a great beach, with 
pointed hills emerging suddenly as the summits 
of long submerged mountains might do. Be- 
yond this slope, we find the same eternal waste 
that has for days followed us like scenes in a night- 
mare; only, here it has been narrowed by con- 
verging hills. I now know what must be the 
sensations of those unfortimate adventurers who, 
in fairy-tales, journey until exhausted, only to find 
themselves back at their point of departure. I 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 339 

begin to wonder if I shall ever escape from this 
blighted country; and the days that must elapse 

before I can take ship, seem countless 

Slowly we move upward through the steadily 
contracting gorge, where a line of telegraph-poles 
makes the unchanging desert uglier still. Black- 
ish clouds gather and then let fall a sharp patter 
of rain. A few monticules of rock dot the plain 
as though hurled there by some angered giant. 
The hardby snow-mountains soon diminish to a 
low and unlovely ridge — almost black like a snake's 
skin — on which the snow lies in streaks, as though 
some viscous liquid had been dropped on the 
summits and left to trickle down the ugly sides. 
The ground is now broken by vast undulations 
that we are forced to climb and then descend, 
one after the other. 

At last we reach our destination, Khan-i-Khora. 
Husayn says this means the Horrible Place; if so, 
it is well named. There is no village, just a cara- 
vanserai ; here I have a small room begrimed with 
smoke, looking out on a filth}^ court where straw 
and dried manure are whirling in the wind. There 
is no door to close the room, and the doorway 
between it and the next cell has only been half 
bricked up, leaving a large hole through which I 
can see the miserable inhabitants, and hear them 
talk, cough, spit, and smoke their bubbling 
galyuns. The supply of water comes from a pool 
or shallow well in front of the caravanserai; it is 
enclosed, but with large arches through which 



340 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

all the flying filth can be blown into the water. 
Within a radius of fifty yards there are : the local 
Ueux d'aisance; the skeleton of a camel not yet 
entirely bare; and the body of a dead horse in 
advanced putrefaction. Not daring to use this 
contaminated liquid even after boiling, I set out 
in search of a spring said to exist. At the foot of 
the hills, I find a well-mouth; down this a man 
clambers; then a jug is lowered, and matches and 
dried branches thrown down. Smoke soon curls 
out of the well, and after a long interval, a voice 
rises from the earth. A jug of fairly clean water 
is now hauled up, with Aliaga — as his name sounds 
to me — climbing breathless up the perpendicular 
sides after it. Even pure water is hard to find 
here. All these material discomforts would be 
negligible, were there beautiful views or curious 
sights to see; but Persia offers so little compensa- 
tion, it is difficult not to long for other countries. 
Across the road is a neglected orchard, enclosed 
by half-fallen walls of clay with an abandoned 
dwelling at one corner. Here and there an un- 
tended tree has put forth a few blossoms, pearly 
white or tipped with rose; birds are fluttering in 
the bare boughs, and three donkeys are playfully 
biting and kicking each other. A gentle breeze 
sways the weedy grass, and two sable crows 
wing across the plain outside, cawing hoarsely. 
Stretched on a sloping trunk, I hear the mule- 
bells chime, as the weary animals come to drink, 
and then file through a gap in the walls to crop 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 341 

the scanty grass. The sound of their munching, 
as they scatter under the trees, is audible above 
the tinkHng of their bells. In front of me stands 
a dwarfed fruit-tree, its few gnarly boughs hung 
with delicate garlands of white flowers. To my 
waste-weary eyes they give the same pleasure 
that must have been felt by those artists, who in 
Japan so loved to draw a single feathery spray 
outlined against a bar of clouds. 



April 14*? 

All night the noise of my neighbours came 
through the broken walls from the next room, 
where — to judge by the sounds — men, women, 
and children of all ages, must have been piled 
promiscuously together. By five o'clock even 
the semblance of sleep had fled. Horrid sounds, 
smoke, and evil smells, poured into my dirty cell 
through the hole in the wall, whilst I was dressing 
with all possible haste. It is a relief to find my- 
self once more out of doors, looking on something 
tolerably clean, even though it be no more attrac- 
tive than the desert upland. The sun has just 
risen, and the lustreless ghost of a moon is sinking 
toward the snow-spangled crests. The snake- 
coloured mountains of last night are now tawny 
and less unlovely; in fact the arid scene has a 
certain charm in this clear early light. 

It is almost seven o'clock when the mules are 
ready to start. I have refused an escort of tu- 



342 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

fangcM, as they are now an unnecessary expense 
and nuisance. We have only gone a few hundred 
yards, when I hear shouts and see an old man 
rushing toward me, his footgear and hat in his 
hands, and his long white hair streaming in the 
wind. He runs up to me, quite out of breath, 
shouting something of which I can only under- 
stand the word tujangchl. While talking, he 
puts on his linen shoes, and places on the back of 
his head an extremely high bonnet with a cabba- 
listic device in brass. He stoops as he walks 
beside my horse, with his hand on the small of 
his back, breathing loud and painfully — the 
image of a distressed magician in a fairy tale. 
When Husayn comes up, I discover that he is an 
employee of the Telegraph Department, and the 
owner of the ravaged orchard which last evening 
deHghted me. He says the tujangchl have been 
making his life miserable, and have this minute 
cut off his indispensable supply of water ; insisting 
that he dare not remain here any longer, he begs 
my permission to accompany us to Dihbid. He 
has an honest face, and arouses pity as he pants 
and hobbles along ; so after giving him some bread 
and tea, I have him mounted on a mule. 

It transpires that he has lived at Khan-i-Khora 
for twenty years, and was — in the days of post- 
travel on this road — the prosperous owner of the 
horses here and at the neighbouring stages. All 
his horses were stolen by robbers, who also sacked 
his orchard and carried off his flocks a few years 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 343 

ago. Unattractive though Persia be, it is impos- 
sible not to be deeply moved by the suffering 
and abject misery that stare the travellers in the 
face at every turn. Strangled by the Great 
Powers (one of them a champion of liberty, in 
this case forced to violate all her best traditions) 
and plundered within by brigands and cor- 
rupt officials, this is to-day the most hopeless 
country I have ever seen. The words Husayn 
used a few days since, haunt me yet: "Ah! 
Monsieur, la Perse est bien dans la misere 
aujourd'hui." ..... 

Our road winds up a steep grade, between sandy 
hillocks covered with grey tufts of dried grass. 
Here and there gullies are filled by a fuzzy growth 
of violet-grey shrubs; but in general only yellow 
earth and clumps of windlestraw greet the eye, 
as we toil steadily up the twisting path. So 
unexpectedly as to startle, a cuckoo's note rings 
out throtigh the silent air from the tawny crest 
of a hill, and is answered by the call of its mate. 
The birds are far above me, out of sight, and their 
music seems to descend like the aerial chime of 
invisible bells. In a flash, this familiar cry has 
evoked the forests of the Ile-de-France at the 
height of spring. The barren uplands have 
vanished, and I find myself riding through ferny 
glades among boles of birch-trees, under the 
shade of their far-spread boughs. The ground is 
strewn with timid sprays of lily-of-the-valley, 
or half hidden by the concourse of yellow jonquils 



344 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

nodding in the sun — like golden butterflies hover- 
ing over a carpet of russet leaves. The air is 
filled with the sound of pealing bells, as through 
the green gloom cuckoos call from bough to bough. 
Then the vision is gone, and I find myself back 
on the hills of Persia, seized by that nostalgia 
which recollections of the loveliest corner of the 
world always provoke. 

The ascent is now very steep, and the rounded 
hillocks have closed in, sloping upward directly 
above us. In places they are covered with grey 
thorn-bushes, leafless but with flowers so minute, 
they are only distinguishable where they cluster 
in a haze of pale mauve. By the road-side 
clumps of an humble flower rather like a moth are 
frequent, its small leaves lilac-grey outside, but 
within, yellow at the heart and at the tip. Around 
a bend in the road, I come suddenly upon four 
scarlet tulips growing in a stretch of yellow earth 
— like drops of blood on a lion's fell. Then other 
clusters appear among the weeds and under thorn- 
bushes. Here in this desolate fawn-coloured 
gorge, the sight of these vermilion blossoms is as 
startling as a sudden trumpet call. One of the 
muleteers has just gathered a handful of the gaudy 
cups (with black hearts outlined with yellow) 
standing erect between long pendent leaves, and 
brought them to me with a pleasant smile; so my 
hands are filled with gay flowers as I climb the 
hill. The cuckoos have long been left behind; 
but little birds constantly flit across the road or 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 345 

glide down among the tufts of grass, filling the 
air with a melodious twitter. The sight of flut- 
tering birds and of flowers robed like flames, 
recalls the forgotten fact that even on these 
upland wastes : 

"... Aprille with his sh cures sote 
The droughte of Marche hath perced to the rote." 

We have now almost reached the summit, 
toward which we have so long been climbing. 
White piles of snow still lie in shaded nooks. The 
muleteers frolic with it, one even gathering a large 
lump which he carries on his head. Finally at a 
height of some eight thousand feet above the sea, 
we emerge on a vast plateau bounded by naked hills, 
beyond which there is to westward a loftier range 
thickly strewn with snow. Riding along, the 
air is clear and invigorating, as befits one of the 
shoulders of the world. Before long we encounter 
a band of tufangchl sent from Dihbid to meet me — 
for the telegraph-operators kindly send word 
from station to station when travellers are passing. 
Then a few minutes later a second group appears, 
this time on horseback. They line up to salute, 
then fall in ; so I ride along with my caravan in the 
midst of a small army. 

Black clouds are now gathering from every 
quarter, while from behind, an inky sheet of rain 
rushes across the sky toward us. To the left 
high pointed peaks striped with snow rise sud- 



346 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

denly, sweeping forward across the horizon; and 
great undulations cut the plain with a series of 
long hills up which we mount and descend, as 
though gliding down waves. Suddenly there is a 
long declivity, at the foot of which Dihbid lies be- 
fore us; — a group of trees and hovels in the centre 
of a great plain hemmed in by high mountains 
now hung with storm-clouds, striping the earth 
with alternate bands of shadow and pale grey light. 
It is a dreary view, yet, in its desolate way, im- 
pressive; a place where the Horse Whose Rider Is 
Death might choose to pass in the roaring of this 
gale. Gradually we draw nearer — my armed 
horsemen galloping around me as I ride ahead of 
the caravan — and soon reach a few half-ruined 
huts of dried mud. Goats are standing on the 
roof, and two gipsy-like women are seated on a 
terrace, where a piece of scarlet cotton spread on a 
rock, stands out violently in this ominous gloom. 
This hamlet has, like so many others, been pil- 
laged and wrecked by robbers in recent years. 
The telegraph station is situated within an en- 
closure that could easily be defended against 
attack. The operator is in this case an English- 
man of education and wide experience, who 
receives me with a cordial hospitality that I 
shall not forget, even though I shall probably 
never have an opportunity to show my appre- 
ciation of it. To find volumes of Wilde, Emer- 
son, and Shakespeare in this Persian solitude 
seems fantastic. 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 347 

April 15^!" 
From Dihbid the road ascends, then once more 
crosses the endless plains, whose dun monotony- 
seems almost more than nerves can bear. After 
several hours there is a slight but welcome change 
in the landscape. We now travel over a series 
of vast undulations, tinged with orange and sepa- 
rated one from the other by marshy levels, where 
short grass grows in water and salt deposits form 
white streaks. Then we climb a steep hill strewn 
with boulders, and descend the opposite slope 
through a serpentine gorge. The hillsides look 
as if covered with iron refuse and rust. The hills 
gradually close in, until they overhang us in shaly 
masses of orange-brown pierced by jagged rocks. 
Bushes, not unlike the gorse but with white blos- 
soms tinged with pink at the heart, grow in 
crevices. The scene is scarcely pretty, but arouses 
expectation at each bend, which is delightful 
after days in the desert. After leaving the gorge 
and crossing uplands intersected by brooks, Qadi- 
rabad comes into sight below a stony ridge. It 
is as usual surrounded by rectangular walls, with 
bastions at the corners and in the centre of each 
side. The high gateway is crowned with curved 
ibex horns, in these parts a frequent decoration. 

A possible lodging is only to be had with much 
difficulty ; on a roof two dirty rooms separated by 
a terrace, under which women are weaving car- 
pets. A part of my kit is carried up the narrow 
Stairs by a man who has been travelHng with my 



348 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

caravan all day. I discover him crouched on the 
ground, searching my saddle-bags; so he has to 
be driven out by a shower of kicks, and orders 
given that he is not to be allowed to travel with 
us again. The air is heavy with the acrid smell 
of all Persian villages, and is filled with the noise 
of women fighting over their children like squeal- 
ing furies. The descending sun touches the walls 
opposite me with rose, poplar-tops bow in the 
breeze, and birds twitter in the golden light; but 
the shrieking voices, filth, and evil odours, are 
what most impress my weary senses. 



April 1 6*^ 
There is a certain excitement in starting this 
morning, for to-day's journey takes us past the 
spot where once Pasargadae stood. When we 
leave about six o'clock, there is perfect pande- 
monium outside the gates, where the chief of the 
tujangchi and most of the villagers are grouped. 
They gather round, insisting that I ought to take 
the usual caravan route; but no consideration of 
comfort or safety shall cause me to pass the Tomb 
of Cyrus by, unvisited. Finally we start across 
country, led by a mounted suwdr. The ground, 
no longer barren, is covered with men tilling the 
fields with primitive wooden ploughs — moving 
slowly across the plain behind their oxen, with 
that picturesque air which the Persian's high 
bonnet always lends him at a distance. Our 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 349 

path is constantly cut by streams and water con- 
duits, through which we splash and scramble. 
On the bank of a sizable brook, we come upon 
three wonderful birds of the species known in 
Algeria as le chasseur d'Afriqzce. They are large 
and of pale but vividly green plumage, with russet 
shoulders and wings tipped with black. They 
are wheeling above a sandy hill, screaming like 
jays. In Persia so small an incident as this 
stands out in the day's journey. 

After several hours spent in crossing hills, we 
reach the village of Dih-i-Nuh, now in ruins, and 
abandoned on account of robber raids. A few 
hundred 3^ards further on, after passing the hill- 
crest, a yellow foundation wall crossing an emi- 
nence suddenly appears on our left. It was once 
an audience-hall of the Achcemenian kings, but is 
now known as the Takht-i-Sulaiman — the Throne 
of Solomon. For the names of the Achaemenians, 
even of Cyrus the Great, are unknown to those 
who dwell in the lands where once they ruled; 
whereas the fabulous fame of Solomon has stirred 
popular imagination to a point where it attributes 
to him all vestiges of splendour. After stumbling 
over boulders and thorns, among which small red 
flowers grow, I reach the platform which is all 
that remains of the palace, and find the whole 
plain of Murghab spread before me. In front, a 
meadow of soft brown, yellow, and green — like 
faded tapestry — extends to the hill-ranges. The 
gap left between the two chains, is closed by a 



350 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

peak just tipped with snow. Below me to the 
left are scattered ruins, supposedly those of Pasar- 
gad^, the first capital of the Persian Empire, 
founded — it is said — by Cyrus the Great on the 
spot where he overthrew his grandfather, Asty- 
ages. King of Media. Even of ruins but little 
remains: a yellow piece of wall, a monolith, a 
platform with a column, a block of stone, and 
further off at the foot of the hills close to a cara- 
vanserai, the Tomb of Cyrus — a small stone 
building, like the Ark of the Covenant, resting on 
a flight of steps beside a barren tree. A vast 
meadow strewn with a few bits of wrought stone, 
and one or two mud villages, where more than 
twenty centuries ago there stood the city of the 
most splendid sovereigns of the antique world. 

Resting here, it is impossible not to wonder what 
manner of men looked out on these same hills 
two thousand years ago. Doubtless, according to 
our standards, barbarians in many ways; but at 
least the royal beings who paced these walls, 
must have possessed a hieratic grandeur, a majesty 
quasi-divine, so long lost we moderns can scarcely 
conceive it. In material ways they were probably 
less fortunate than modern artisans ; but in things 
spiritual, it is perhaps not altogether fanciful to 
think them endowed with an esoteric experience 
no longer known. With what eyes did they gaze 
between these hill-set pillars; above all, what 
thoughts flitted through their minds as their feet 
trod the once polished but now ruined stones on 



%.i'' °^.^^"' ■'''^'W^^'- ■' ".=s^J' 







The Tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae 




H^ 'flk 



Goats and Children Guard the Tomb that Alexander of Macedon Entered with Reverence 








■B< 



Ph a 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 351 

which I stand to-day? Wherein were they like 
and wherein did they differ from us? Oh! for 
one flash of illumination, whereby to divine the 
mentality of a Cyrus ! Idle thoughts, but like all 

vain things not unalluring 

Standing by itself on the plain, a square shaft 
of yellowed marble some six yards high, rises from 
the sandy ground and stubbly grass. On its 
face are three lines of arrow-like characters — 
cuneiform inscriptions that I cannot read. Yet 
this abandoned piece of stone wreckage bathed in 
sunlight, thrills me; for those little dashes that I 
am looking at, here in the fields of Murghab, form 
the famous tri-lingual phrase: "I am Cyrus the 
King the Achagmenian," whose proud simplicity 
stirred me even when, a small boy, I first read it 
in school-books. The ruins of the royal palace 
are not particularly interesting, but the nearby 
block of stone, with its winged figure carved in low 
relief, is extremely so. Somewhat to my surprise, 
I find it deeply impressive. Does it represent a 
divinity or a king? or is it really — as supposed — ■ 
an image of Cyrus the Great? The idea that it 
may be his portrait is stirring, yet does not really 
matter, since the bas-relief is in itself very noble, 
even when half -effaced, covered with lichen, and 
at this hour in shadow. These archaic artists 
by their symbolism, spiritual fervour, and enforced 
simplicity, attained a hieratic beauty no modern 
work — however fine — can achieve. This figure 
expresses the remoteness of majesty or divinity 



352 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

with wonderful success; even its mannerism and 
deliberate distortion of perspective seem, not so 
much a defect, as a chosen form of art. 

A gallop of a few seconds brings me to the Tomb 
of Cyrus. There is mockery in the fact that it is 
now known as the Tomb of the Mother of Solomon, 
and is surrounded by the graves of Muslims. 
This group of stones was — we know — -visited by 
the world-shaking Alexander of - Macedon ; and 
of what he saw the account of an eye-witness has 
been preserved in a later chronicle : — 

"Aristobulus .... says that there was in 
Persia, in the royal paradise, the tomb of that 
Cyrus. About it had been planted a grove of all 
kinds, and it was watered with streams, and deep 
grass had grown up in the meadow. ... In 
the house was placed a golden coffin where the 
body of Cyrus was buried, and a couch beside the 
cofSn. The feet of the couch were of hammer- 
beaten gold, and it had a cover of Babylonian 
tapestries and thick carpets of purple were strewn 
beneath it, and there was also upon it a tunic 
and other garments of Babylonian workmanship. 
. . . And in the middle of the couch was placed 
the cofhn which held the body of Cyrus." 

Of the columns once surrounding the tomb, a 
few fragments still remain. The building is very 
small and without ornament. The steps on 
which it is placed, are built of huge blocks, so high 
that to clamber up them is all a tall man can do. 
Ruin and nature have now made the sepulchre 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 353 

their own; plants grow in fissures, bushes crown the 
steps, and from the roof a small tree rises like a 
banner. Goats and kids sport at its base, whilst 
half-naked children play on the steps that the 
Macedonian mounted with awe; from the burial 
chamber which he must have entered with rever- 
ence, a village slattern rushes out as I step in. 
The door is open to animals and all the winds; 
inside there is nothing but a cell begrimed with 
smoke, where strings of bells are hung across the 
end, and prayer-papers lie in hollows scooped in 
the floor. 

In this exiguous space Alexander bowed his 
conquering head ; here even the vandal who burned 
Persepolis, revered the founder of a race to whose 
glory he had made an end ; the body of Cyrus and 
all its trappings have long disappeared — who 
knows whither? — now neglect and ruin reign. 
Could the Great King for one moment return, it 
would be impossible for him to comprehend what 
has happened. That his imperial tomb should 
be desecrated and overgrown with thorns, while 
goats graze the grass where his stately city once 
stood, — he could scarcely conceive; and he would 
find small consolation in the fact that when cen- 
tury after century had fallen into the abyss of 
time, men should still come to visit the stone that 
once held the wax-embalmed body of Cyrus the 
Achasmenian. It is true that even now travellers 
are thrilled, when they see the burial-place of the 
King of Kings, who once filled all the world with 
23 



354 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the rumour of his fame ; but to-day is it more than 
a wind-borne echo? Of Kay Khusraw, who dried 
the Euphrates and marched up the river-bed at 
night to take great Babylon by stratagem in the 
midst of her pride, what is left but a vaulting 
name and, in text-books, a few lines to stir a school- 
boy? — Once again "vanity of vanity" in all its 
platitude ; yet in spots like this it returns with such 
a poignancy as makes it seem a discovery. 

Riding slowly off, I look over my shoulders to 
take the last glance I shall probably ever have 
at the stones that must have met the gaze of 
Alexander when he entered the plain of Murghab. 
The road now enters a cleft in the hills, curving 
through the Tang-i-Bulaghi. The rocks rise 
above us on both sides in sheer walls; sometimes 
the path is actually cut in the face of the cliff, 
and is so narrow only one mule can pass at a time. 
At the bottom a muddy stream dashes between 
the high perpendicular banks it has cut through 
the loam in past ages. It no longer fills its bed; 
feathery plumes of sedge wave beside the water, 
then olive-green willows with fine foliage grow 
up to the banks, above which their tops hardly 
rise. Where the hills are less abrupt, shrub-like 
trees grow in such regular rows they seem planted 
by men. The air is murmurous with the swish 
of running water, the twitter of birds, and the 
croaking chorus of frogs. The scenery is not 
particularly beautiful; yet after days spent in 
the desert, this wild gorge — where the twisting 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 355 

road at each turn affords new vistas — seems a 
small Eden. 

Beyond this defile the road crosses meadow- 
lands, and then enters a broad valley that might 
be in the Alps, were it not for camels grazing, while 
their drivers lie on the grass beside the bales. 
Outside a village, we pass a walled garden filled 
with trees covered with vivid green foliage. Large 
trees in full leaf! their real beauty can only be 
appreciated in countries where they are rare. 
Then the valley contracts, becomes wilder, and 
turns sharply to the left. Ahead of us is quite a 
river; a large bridge once spanned it, but is now 
in ruin, so the only passage is across a ford. This 
stream is often so swift and deep as to be impass- 
able. Fortunately it is only knee-high to-day, 
but the animals, in fording, slip and flounder from 
stone to stone; so the crossing is not without 
excitement. 

To the left, the angle where the valley changes 
direction, is formed by a bare and sloping hill. 
Near the summit a shoulder of rock emerges sud- 
denly, in the semblance of a grotesque human 
face with upturned snout — such as Goya loved to 
picture in his Caprices. When we have crossed the 
river and turned this vast buttress, it towers beside 
the road — a square mass of tawny rock. In- 
numerable crows wheel round its apex and dash 
into the crevices, cawing wildly, quite as though 
it were the ruins of some rough-hewn cathedral 
tower. In a wide depression — once the river- 



356 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

bed — is a grove of trees, mainly poplars, fledged 
with fresh green that caresses the eye. Through 
this coppice the narrow stream now winds; on 
the further side a cliff rears its swelling bastion 
of purple-brown, and then sinks toward the plain 
in long curving bands of vertical flutes. The fast- 
sinking sun fills the air with a gentle radiance, 
melancholy like all departing things. Before 
long Sivand appears at the end of the grove; the 
sun is about to set when we reach the telegraph- 
station, which stands outside the village — looking 
like a royal villa. 

Sitting on the porch, the valley spreads before 
me in the twiHght, until the mountains abruptly 
fence it in. From the gardens in the grove beside 
the river, men and women are wending across the 
meadows toward the tiny brown houses that con- 
stitute the village. The men carry spades over 
their shoulders, and wear those high bonnets that 
always recall the Kings come from the East; the 
women walk in separate groups — grave figures 
with mantles falling from the head until they 
trail on the ground. In the evening Hght the 
scene is pastoral, a quality more than rare in 

this country When night draws her veil 

hung with stars, the chorus of frogs is loud enough 
to deafen. Their croaking sounds as though it 
were the noise of some object revolving and grind- 
ing at one point in each revolution; yet it has a 
rhythm not without fascination, as I listen to it 
vibrating through the dark. 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 357 

April 17^1* 
Just as my caravan is starting, a curious noise 
attracts attention — a procession of women moving 
along the path at the foot of the declivity in front 
of the telegraph-station, chanting a lamentation. 
Husayn tells me it is the funeral of the chief 
villager's wife. At this point the road begins to 
pass between the banks of a slight depression ; the 
body is already out of sight, and of the foremost 
women I can see little more than the head and 
shoulders. The women walk two by two with un- 
covered faces, but shrouded in the veils which form 
the main part of every woman's dress, whether 
rich or poor. Even little girls begin to wear them 
at the age of seven or eight years, so nothing 
could be more common; yet there is real dignity 
in the sweep of these ample draperies. There- 
fore, to Western eyes which associate this quality 
only with classical or tragic compositions, they 
suggest im^ages of grief. In fact, they do resemble 
the madonnas and mourners of our pictures; and 
I personally never see a group of them (half stand- 
ing, half kneeHng) without being reminded of 
the women gathered at the foot of the cross in 
the Crucifixion which Tintoretto painted to fill 
Venice with its splendour. 

To-day the sorrowful association of these 
mantles is apposite as their wearers file past, for 
the most part draped in black — not because it 
is mourning, but because it is the commonest 
colour. The women now seat themselves in a 



358 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

little hollow near a wall beside the stream; they 
are grouped about the to me invisible body, in 
tiers ascending the acclivity. Their lamentation 
is uninterrupted but is not as might be expected 
a shrill wail; it is a low ceaseless murmur like the 
sound of birds in distress. The men — all in brown 
robes — are seated hardby in a line against an 
umber wall of clay, in their black bonnets looking 
like a row of magi. Occasionally they break into 
a chant, whose louder tones dominate the moan- 
ing of the women. It is a curious scene that I 
leave behind, as we move through the village out 
into the valley in the early April morning. 

To-day it is possible to view the monotonous 
road without displeasure, since it leads me toward 
the tombs of the Acheemenians at Naqsh-i-Rustam. 
I have hired a villager to show me the shortest 
way, and after two hours' journeying leave my 
caravan to proceed to Kinara by the direct road, 
while Husayn, Said, and I, cross the river after 
our guide, who tucks his robes up in his girdle, 
precisely as the royal hunters "girded up their 
loins" centuries ago. The path skirts a high bar- 
ren hill, straight across which Naqsh-i-Rustam 
lies; but to reach it we must ride round the hill. 
When we come to the promontory in which it 
terminates, we find ourselves in a wide plain 
bordered on each side by low chains of rocky 
mountains devoid of all vegetation. In the far 
distance this valley opens out into a vast plain 
where fortified villages are just discernible. 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 359 

Unlike the country through which we have 
travelled so many weary days, this is meadow- 
land, tilled in places, in others covered with weeds 
and grass. In spots some white flowering plant 
waves over the grass, where wild poppies dye the 
corners of the fields with scarlet. Like all culti- 
vated ground in Persia, this valley is intersected 
in every direction by irrigation canals — deep 
narrow trenches where muddy water flows swiftly 
at the bottom. On the steep banks little shrubs 
grow among masses of poppy, waving their ver- 
milion cups as the wind runs over the slender 
stalks. On the right, the barren mountain rises 
abruptly in long spurs we are forced to skirt, since 
the canals make it impossible to ride across coun- 
try. Great white clouds have long been driving 
across the sky, and have now gathered in ominous 
groups above the mountains which bound the 
horizon far across the plain of Mervdasht. Beside 
the road there is a nomad camp: black tents 
around which women move in figured cottons of 
the most brilliant red. A few girls are scattered 
over the plain, standing in the grass or kneeling 
on the yellow earth beside the trenches, in their 
gaudy clothes looking like a larger size of poppies. 

My guide said that to the tombs it was only a 
" little /ar^aM" from where we left the main road, 
but we have travelled at least two already. Just 
when I am beginning to lose patience, I see the 
top of a square tower-like building on a mound 
in front of the cliff; it must be the "fire-temple" 



360 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

built in front cf the tombs. At present every- 
thing that is not covered with vegetation, seems 
tinged with rosy pink — bare earth, water-dykes, 
stony roadside, and lofty mountain. The perpen- 
dicular cliffs tower above us, like the discrowned 
battlements of some fortress once built by Titans ; 
huge fragments strew the ground at their base, 
and their red-brown surfaces are seamed and 
dented, as though they had withstood the on- 
slaught of Jove's artillery. Turning a last spur 
the tombs lie before me. 

At this point the cliff which terminates the 
lowest range of mountains, begins to sink rapidly 
until lost in the plain a few hundred yards to the 
left — like a reef running into the sea. The rocky 
wall here swells out in a series of vast bastions; 
indeed the whole formation has a strange resem- 
blance to the work of gigantic yet human beings. 
High above the ground on the more level surfaces 
between the sheer projections, two intersecting 
rectangles — one vertical, the other horizontal — 
have been cut so as to form a vast but unequal 
cross. The horizontal arm is narrower and more 
deeply sunk than the vertical. The door to the 
tomb is a small aperture, like a black spot, in the 
centre of the cross. Four of these immense de- 
signs stand before me; the first one, on the side 
of the spar we have just rounded, being almost 
at right angles to the others. A sandy ridge some 
thirty or more feet high runs parallel with the 
cliff, affording a splendid view of the tombs from 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 361 

its summit. The contrast between the smooth- 
ness of the deeply sunken surfaces and the rugged 
face of the rock, is very striking ; and the vast yet 
simple conception of these royal tombs is deeply 
impressive. Cut in a mountain side high in the 
air, truly these are sepulchres befitting great kings. 
Their bodies were not hidden away in earth, there 
to become the loathsome prey of corruption; but 
were embalmed in wax and precious unguents, 
and then placed on high; so that even in death 
these imperial monarchs throned it aloft, gazing 
out with sealed eyes across the plains that had 
once been in life the scene of their splendour. 

And what was it they ordered to be depicted 
on the smoothed surfaces of their last resting- 
place, high on the beetling cliff, for men to gaze 
up at during untold centuries? In low relief, 
columns with capitals of bulls' bodies, support an 
entablature; above which a row of men — repre- 
senting subject races — is carved, carrying a plat- 
form with another row of captives; these uphold 
a second platform; on this the King is shown in 
profile standing on a mound, with his right arm 
raised in adoration before the symbol of Ahura- 
mazda — the upper half of a majestic figure rising 
from the emblem of eternity between wings float- 
ing in space. The scene is noble, and even to-day 
that curious symbol of Divinity all but arouses 
awe. On every tomb, the same figures: high on 
the polished stone, just beneath the deep over- 
hang of the crags, the King alone with God. 



362 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

These ancient peoples, whose simpler natures 
looked on the world with fresher eyes, had in 
truth a peculiar sense of the Divine, that we have 
utterly lost The large Sasanian bas- 
reliefs carved on the face of the cliffs some seven 
centuries later, are curious and — in the case of 
ShapOr and the captive Emperor Valerian — not 
inexpressive; yet they fail to impress as do the 
great sunken surfaces above. The colossal figures 
are perhaps more realistic than the earlier and 
more conventionalised work; but they are bar- 
baric, and lack the sincerity and stiff grace of 
primitive sculpture, without attaining beauty of 
form. Hewn haphazard in the rock near the 
ground, they have no plan, form no part of a com- 
position, and are artistically altogether inferior 
to the Achaemenian carvings. The real inferiority 
is, however, mental; I feel that the men who 
created these bulky kings and captives, were 
spiritually barbarians compared with those who 
had that conventional but significant vision of a 
king and his God, which draws my eyes upward. 

I am determined not to leave without visiting 
the tomb of Darius Hystaspes — no easy task, 
since the entrance lies more than a hundred feet 
above the ground, and the surfaces of the hewn 
rock are sheer and smooth. However, villagers 
or nomads — I know not which — are standing 
about prepared for the advent of a curious for- 
eigner, and ready to haul me up with ropes. 
After tucking up the skirts of their robes, by some 




The Cliff-Hewn Tombs of the Achaemenian Kings, Nagsh-i-Rustam 
The four sunken crosses are tombs; the fifth is hidden 



fW.^ 



r 



t\ 



f _•*. 




m 



The First Tomb, Nagsh-i-Rustam 




The Tomb of Darius Hystaspes, Nagsh-i-Rustam 
The bas-reliefs below the tombs are Sasanian work 



-""" •'"«*. • ■ 






Sasanian Sculptures, Nagsh-i-Rustam 
To the left, Shahpur receiving the conquered Roman Emperor, Valerian 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 363 

feat of fly-like agility they manage to climb the 
perpendicular rock with bare feet and hands. 
Two stand on the lower platform, two on the 
upper at the level of the entrance ; they then drop 
ropes which are tied under my arms, and pull 
me up to the first platform. Here another set of 
ropes is attached, and up I go a second time. 
Hanging in space, banging against the rocks like 
a ball, I am vividl}'' reminded of the fate which 
here overtook the aged parents of Darius. Desir- 
ous of viewing the tomb on its completion, they 
were drawn up by magi stationed on the summit 
of the cliff; frightened — legend says — by a serpent, 
they let go the ropes, and the poor old people were 
dashed to death. Swaying on a rope, the idea 
that after all these centuries my end would have 
an august precedent, does not make the prospect 
more alluring. However, I am dragged up safely 
and hauled over the edge by the hands of my very 
dirty magi; then I crawl dizzily along a narrow 
ledge and enter the tomb by a small door once 
closed by slabs of stone. 

I find myself in a narrow but lofty cell, in plan 
a rectangle with the longer side parallel to the 
cliff; out of this three deep recesses open, all of 
them, with receptacles for bodies — rude sarco- 
phagi cut in the solid rock. The lids are cracked 
or lost, and everything is covered with dirt and 
the dung of birds. Yet this defiled chamber, 
whence I gaze out over the wide plain far below, 
once held the body of the King of Kings ; and here 



364 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

his favourite eunuch passed seven years of faith- 
ful sorrow beside the royal dead. These sweating 
walls and filthy floors must once have been hidden 
behind costly stuffs, and the whole tomb filled 
with gold and objects of price piled about the 
embalmed majesty of Darius. Now it is empty, 
visited only by villagers or a particularly curious 
foreigner! "Dust and ashes" once again; the 
thought pursues one in this country, like that 
iteration of a single note which maddens musicians 
when growing deaf. 

After reaching the ground in safety, I visit the 
detached tower which stands in front of the cliffs. 
Some arch^ologists think it a tomb, others a fire- 
temple; none can prove their theory, so there is 
choice for all. To-day it is full of natives, eating 
and smoking long galyuns, quite unconscious of all 
the disputes waged about their shelter. Turning 
the point where the rock loses itself in the plain, 
I come upon the two famous fire-altars — with a 
start of surprise. I had expected them to be 
much larger and placed higher up; as a matter of 
fact, they are small and quite close to the ground. 
Nevertheless, these rough-hewn and almost pre- 
historic altars, where the sacred fire once leaped 
toward the pellucid Iranian sky, are — as relics 
of a lost civilisation — strangely impressive. Not 
far across the plain rises an isolated mountain of 
curious form, on whose flat upper surface the 
Divinity might easily be conceived as descending 
centuries and centuries ago. The priest of Zara- 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 365 

thustra must, as he tended the consecrated flame, 
have looked out — perhaps at dawn — over the 
gathered heads of worshippers toward this very 
mountain-top; the thought is stirring, as I stand 
here beside these long abandoned altars, the last 
vestiges of a forgotten but noble form of adoration. 
Despite previous and present enquiries, I am 
quite unable to discover how the different ruins 
are located on the plain of Mervdasht. All the 
information to be extracted from my guide through 
Husayn the useless, is that Naqsh-i-Rajab and 
its Sasanian sculptures are situated on the hill- 
side across the plain. The distance in a straight 
line is short; but the dykes and streams inter- 
secting the plain on all sides, force us to make a 
long detour. Even so, we have to splash across 
the smaller conduits, where the animals stumble 
and nearly drop us in the water. After fording a 
swift river, deep enough to reach the stirrups, the 
ruins of Persepolis appear suddenly around a spur 
of the hills. I had thought it far away on the 
further side of the plain, so am startled on seeing 
an immense platform covered by a forest of shat- 
tered columns, jutting out from the mountain in 
the distance; for a few seconds I hardly realize 

what it is Finally we reach the rocky 

hillside and discover the cleft known as Naqsh-i- 
Rajab. It is nothing more than a wide fissure 
running back into the hill some fifty yards or more; 
here three large surfaces were in Sasanian days 
smoothed on the rough sides of the rock — in 



366 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

places overhanging the ground — and covered with 
gigantic figures in high reHef. They represent 
the King at the head of troops, or receiving the 
crown from the hands of God; but even more 
curious than the sculptures themselves, is the 
thought — how did they come to be placed here ? 
What were the people who wrought them? Why 
did they carve them in this crevice, near which 
apparently no city ever was? How were kings 
honoured by images so remotely placed? With 
what rites did men come here ? and what were their 
feelings when they gazed on the forms at whose 
weather-worn remnants I am now looking? These 
queries are none the less insistent, because no 
archaeologist can ever give me their answer. 

The clouds have long been threatening rain; 
when we ride away, the sky is covered with a 
leaden shroud and the light pallid — though it is 
only three o'clock. A wild wind blows across the 
now bleak plains, seeming to strike with separate 
blows every nerve in the body. When the extrem- 
ity of the hills bounding the valley has been 
rounded, Persepolis comes into sight again, in this 
light sombre as a wreck. I dismount directly 
under the terrace; it towers over me, a wall 
without break or decoration, except for the recess 
in which the immense flight of stairs ascends. It 
is built of enormous blocks of stone ; at the corners 
and over the stairway, green shrubs grow out 
between the joints, creating a romantic drapery 
Piranesi would have loved. There is nothing but 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 367 

a long wall without ornament of any sort; yet its 
vast scale and absolute simplicity make it one 
of the most impressive monuments I have ever 
beheld. The flights of stairs are so broad and so 
gradually inclined, they must have been designed 
for the stately progress of the king in inviolable 
solitude, preceded by the splendours of the long- 
stoled priests, and of — 

"The warlike soldiers and the gentlemen, 
That heretofore have filled Persepolis 
With Afric captains taken in the field, 
Whose ransom made them march in coats of gold, 
With costly jewels hanging at their ears. 
And shining stones upon their lofty crests." 

After climbing the now neglected steps, I find 
myself on an immense platform from which the 
hillside slopes backward. Below the grey sky, 
storm clouds of deep violet and black are rushing 
across the strange forms of the distant mountains ; 
occasionally when they lessen, the sun struggles to 
break through, lighting the ruins with a fugitive 
pallor. Directly in front of me stands the Portico 
of Xerxes, where gigantic figures — with a human 
head, the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird — 
keep guard at the portals of the dead. The heads 
and breasts of these apocalyptic creatures are 
carved on the narrow face of the walls, their flanks 
on the sides, up which their wings sweep grandly; 
so the mass of stone seems rather to grow out of, 
than to be supported by, these awesome beasts. 



368 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Even to-day when half in ruin and defaced by- 
travellers' inscriptions (which delighted Lord 
Curzon), it is impossible to view unmoved these 
splendid images, where the three realms of man, 
beast, and bird, seem united in quasi-divinity. 
When the majesty of Darius or Xerxes appeared 
between their undiminished glory, the combined 
impressiveness of man and masonry must have 
struck beholders dumb. To the right rise the 
fragments of the great Hall of Xerxes: a decimated 
forest of slightly golden columns despoiled of 
capitals, entablature, and roof. Beyond and on 
slightly higher ground, are the ruined palaces of 
Darius and Xerxes — two groups of stone doors and 
windows now blackened, looking in miniature 
like Egyptian pylons crowded together. Behind 
everything, a steep acclivity of bare rock, where 
three tombs — like but less impressive than those 
at Naqsh-i-Rustam — have been hewn. A band 
of Persian holiday-makers from the neighbouring 
villages and even from Shiraz, fills the ruins of 
Persepolis; their horses paw the stones in the 
Palace of Xerxes, and the whole of Takht-i- 
Jamshid (as Persians call this spot) resounds 
with the shouts of men and the cries of women 
and children. Truly — 

" They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep : 
And Bahram, that great Hunter — the Wild Ass 
Stamps o'er his head, but cannot break his sleep." 



,.ww.-'i jl 



^^^ '•■ filll ll f* 

4^1 :g| I- 




The Archaeologist's Despair 
So-called Fire Temple, Nagsh-i-Rustam 





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Sasanian Sculptures near the End of the Cliff, Nagsh-i-Rustam 




Fording a Stream on the Way to Persepolis, Plain of Mervdasht 




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Zoroastrian Fire Altars, Nagsh-i-Rustam 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 369 

On arriving, I regretted the loveliness which 
sunlight might give these famous stones; now as 
I look out over the mournful plain to the rack of 
inky cloud above the mountains, this gloom and 
raging wind seem a more fitting background 
against which to view all that remains of 

"The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw, 
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew." 

At first, fatigue, nerves unstrung by the wind, 
and the discordant sounds of holiday-making, 
prevented my being as much impressed as I had 
expected. Even now I am not thrilled as I have 
been in other places, where art and history com- 
bine in a manner no imagination can resist; yet 
I find that in strolling among the shattered marbles, 
one magnificent impression is borne in upon me 
more and more strongly. It is the idea of what 
"divinity doth hedge a king." If man ever de- 
vised a perfect setting for royalty, above all for 
royalty in the days when it was all but divine, 
it was this group of fallen stones. Everywhere are 
carvings of the King, forming practically the 
only decoration in all Persepolis. Even the 
placing of these images is peculiar ; they are all on 
the reveal of doors and windows, which are very 
deep — sometimes over four feet. They are in 
bas-relief and with figures in profile only. Al- 
though too numerous to count, all are — on vary- 
ing scales — reproductions of a few themes. The 
24 



370 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

King, with curled beard and locks, in his hands a 
staff and lotus-wand, is followed by two atten- 
dants; one holds a parasol over the royal person, 
and the other carries with uplifted arms a handle 
with a horse's tail curving over the King's crown ; 
often the symbol of Ahuramazda floats above the 
parasol. Elsewhere rows of subjugated warriors 
carrying platforms, rise from the bottom of the 
sculpture, tier upon tier, until only just enough 
room remains to depict the King enthroned 
beneath the Egyptian emblem of eternity, with 
attendants behind the lofty throne foot-stool. 
Or again the King is engaged in single combat 
with a lion standing on its hind legs and about 
to claw the royal huntsman, when he drives his 
sword to the hilt in the belly of the beast. The 
King is always represented on a much larger scale 
than other figures, a primitive but not ineffectual 
convention to suggest his more than human gran- 
deur. As far as I can see there is no attempt to 
portray Darius or Xerxes or any other individual; 
ah seem to be representations of the King — sym- 
bols of something more than man. The repetition 
of these few scenes to decorate this entire terrace 
of palaces, may seem monotonous; but there can 
be no doubt that these ancient artists understood 
the tremendous effect of simplicity, and of one 
idea deliberately reproduced to the exclusion of 
all else. 

What must not have been the impression made 
on all who traversed these lofty and open halls? 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 371 

Wherever he moved, the sovereign was confronted 
with images of his glory; and his followers — how- 
ever accustomed to the sight — could not have 
been other than affected by the incessant recur- 
rence of signs proclaiming the sacrosanct majesty 
of him they served. In such a setting, these 
old-time rulers must have known sensations of 
omnipotence and the possession of divine nature 
but slightly veiled, such as modern men cannot in 
their wildest imaginings conceive. They must 
indeed have exclaimed : — 

"Is it not passing brave to be a King, 
And ride in triumph through Persepolis? 
A god is not so glorious as a King. 
I think the pleasure they enjoy in Heaven, 
Cannot compare with kingly joys on earth." 

Think what a Darius or a Xerxes must have felt, 
as he throned it on high at the end of so vast an 
audience-hall! Robed in all that is delicate and 
splendid, wearing — 

"... A crown enchased with pearl and gold, 
Whose virtues carry with it life and death," 

dust of gold sprinkled on his long locks and curled 
beard; he is seated aloft on a throne of precious 
stones, his sandalled and bejewelled feet resting 
on a foot-stool. Princely attendants bearing the 
insignia of his might, hold above him the imperial 
parasol. Around him is a forest of tall fluted 
shafts of marble, where on every capital two bulls 



372 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

support an inlaid ceiling of perfumed cedar. 
Great hangings preciously embroidered curtain 
off the outer world, but at the end leave a clear 
view across the plains of Mervdasht. There they 
stretch, vast expanses of meadowy ground, bounded 
far off by low ranges of barren rock ; a featureless 
scene, but in its wide sweep not without grandeur; 
above all, one ideal for its purpose, since it offers 
no dominant mass of mountains or other feature, 
which might suggest to the King the existence of 
powers mightier that he. Enthroned above 
everyone, the King as he looks through the splen- 
did hall, out across the benign earth, can see 
nothing he may not command — unless it be that 
Ahuramazda, whose winged symbol floats above 
him. And in his heart of hearts, he probably 
says to himself: "What is Ahuramazda to me?" 

It is said that even so mean a measure 

of absolute power as man can attain, brings with 
it satiety; surely in these hieratic sovereigns, 
weariness of all things must at times have been 
compensated by an almost divine dilation of 
thought and feeling, such as can no longer fall 
to the lot of any man. 

Think too of what must have been in another 
order, the emotions of a man for the first time 
admitted in these halls to the presence of the King 
of Kings! After crossing the plains, and mount- 
ing the wide stairs between rows of richly garbed 
attendants; he passes through the awe-inspiring 
portico to find himself in the consecrated precinct, 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 373 

gazing at the King enshrined like an idol at the 
end of columnar vistas. He must indeed have 
felt awe, and that too is uplifting; for like love, 
terror, or any violent emotion, it expands the 
whole being, crowding into a few seconds an 
amplitude of feeling an entire life might otherwise 
not give. This man may well be envied — for awe 
is a sensation that has practically passed from our 
existence to-day. Even when we believe in the 
Divine, we no longer expect to find it incarnate 
or even manifest. Nor can nature give us the 
sensation; she may terrify or crush us, but — 
despite mystery still inscrutable — we have pierced 
too many secrets to feel the dread that is aroused 
by things too lofty to grasp. As for man, how- 
ever much we may love or revere him, what 
human being fills us with awe to-day? This 
feeling, aroused by the presence of something 
thought more than human, has been lost like 
many others known to our mysterious forbears; 
they were paid for by the misery of millions, but 
at moments the privileged among these ancient 
races must have achieved a particular form of 
perfection we shall never see. Their lives must, 
however, have been a curious mixture of splendour 
and discomfort ; each of these palaces (where kings 
dwelt) is no more than a single room surrounded 
by porticos, through which the living sovereigns 
might see the tombs of those who went before. 
This vast terrace is really nothing more than one 
palace on a scale perhaps never surpassed. The 



374 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

residence of the courtiers and the lodging of 
followers must have been elsewhere. 

Riding across the plains to Kinara, as darkness 
falls and the storm descends on the mountains, 
at whose foot lie the all-overseeing tombs of the 
Achasmenians, I turn to look for the last time at 
the mighty but discrowned pillars standing on the 
terrace of Persepolis. As I move away, I realise 
that the spot has stirred me far more deeply than 
I at first suspected. While there, I thought but 
little about Alexander, my mind being too busy 
with the magnificent monarchs who built this 
unique abode. Riding between wind-rippled fields 
of grain, I cannot help thinking how the con- 
queror, whom we imagine to have been a young 
Apollo, must — at some hours — have been rather 
a besotted vandal. It is true that with too fine 
a sensibility he could never have been a great 
captain; still, I should rather have had him leave 
a corner of the world unconquered than burn the 
glories of Persepolis. 



April i8t> 
Crossing the plain of Mervdasht from Kinara 
to rejoin the main road from Sivand to Shiraz, 
Persepolis on its throne and Naqsh-i-Rustam 
are visible far across the meadows. At first there 
is sun, but soon the sky grows grey and wind rises, 
striking us with wild gusts. Before long we reach 
a muddy stream, crawling through a featureless 




Sasanian Cliff Sculpture, Nagsh-i-Rajab 
The cliff in the distance is Nagsh-i-Rustam on the other side of the plain of Mervdasht 




Ruins of Persepolis 
" The Palace That to Heav'n His Pillars Thier" 



l£^ 



I 



iilii 



■t 






p 


f ' "l 




» 









L. 



The Portico of Xerxes, Persepolis 




Palace of Darius, Persepolis 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ ' 375 

country between banks of clay without trees or 
shrubs; it is spanned by a high stone bridge, now 
so ruinous that to cross it is far from pleasant. 
This is the river Bandamir — made famous by 
Moore's vulgar verses : 

"There^s a bower of roses by Bendameer's stream 
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long." 

Had he ever seen the spot, his anapsestic sentimen- 
tality would have received a shock. Then we 
traverse marsh-land on the remnants of an old 
road of broken stone, and after rounding a hill, 
come in sight of Zarghan. On the outskirts are 
curious wells built on the same principle as those 
in the Algerian M'zab; only, here mules and oxen 
are used to draw the water in place of camels. 
This coincidence is very striking in countries so 
unrelated. 

I find a lodging in an old house that must once 
have been a master-work. With the outer world 
the only communication is through the entrance 
gates. The house surrounds a large court, with 
water tanks and what once were flower-beds; it 
is divided into two parts, on the one side an edi- 
fice of two stories ; on the other of only one. The 
walls are of dried clay framed and patterned with 
white stucco ; large areas around the window open- 
ings are filled with screens of pierced wood, beau- 
tifully designed and executed. My room must 
once have been delightful ; it is covered with stucco 



376 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

ornamentation painted in bright colours; in the 
wall-recesses there is honeycomb vaulting, above 
pictures of little birds perched on stiff bouquets; 
colour, gold, and carving, cover all the surfaces. 
Now everything is ruin — the doors open when I 
arrived, filth an inch deep on the floors, birds and 
cats the only inhabitants. Sights such as these 
are what make travel so distressing here. Just 
because Persia was once highly civilised and filled 
with works of art, its ruin and filth are to-day 
more painful to see than any sight in countries 
always barbarous. The little that is left to-day, 
she neglects or destroys — indifferent to all that 
once formed her glory. 



April I9*^ 
To-day's is the last stage between me and Shiraz, 
— a very pleasant thought. On leaving Zarghan 
there is a pretty view of the town in the chill 
morning light. At the foot of a great cliff, houses 
of brownish clay — much the colour of the rock 
towering above — are clustered, rising in tiers one 
above the other, with little towers and tiny loggie, 
as though the inhabitants were trying to imitate 
an Italian hill-town. Above the roofs two cy- 
presses rise — the first I have seen in Persia. The 
road soon begins to climb between barren hills, 
green and brown with stains of orange; then de- 
scends suddenly to cross a plain, and once more 
ascends an almost perpendicular hill strewn with 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 377 

boulders, up which the animals are forced to 
scramble, panting loudly. Far to the right a 
mountain dominates the scene with an almost 
purple cliff. Traffic on the heretofore deserted 
road, shows that we are approaching a large city; 
camels pass in caravans or graze the hillside, whilst 
their bales strew the ground; bands of men pass 
on foot, carrying long sticks; men, women, and 
children, troop by on mules and donkeys. We 
now begin to descend gradually but steadily; 
beside the road a clear runnel dashes along between 
tiny dykes, like all the irrigation conduits I have 
seen ; yet this is the brook of which Hafiz wrote : — 

"For sure, in all the enchanted ground 
Of Paradise, there are not found, 
The fountain brinks of Rukhnabad." 

After many windings we turn the shoulder of 
an eminence, and Shiraz lies before me in the V- 
shaped opening between the hills we are now de- 
scending. In the foreground a gateway bars the 
valley; thence a broad avenue leads toward the 
city — a flat expanse of pinkish-brown only broken 
by tapering cypress-trees and one earthen dome. 
The green plain encircles it, spreading out to the 
barren mountains that hem it in like a bowl. The 
colours are charming, but lack the lovely contrast 
which in Algeria the white houses make with 
vegetation. It is a pretty but rather featureless 
scene; yet this is the famous first view of Sa'di's 



378 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

Shiraz, reputed so beautiful as to force all travel- 
lers to halt and cry involuntarily: "AUahu 
Akbar!" — God is Great! To this day it goes by 
the name of the Tang-i-AUahu Akbar. Like all 
Persia, it is disappointing. Either the city must 
in old days have been more beautiful — which is 
probable — or else it gained its renown by contrast 
with the desolate country amid which it lies. 

Riding through the gateway and out along the 
broad highway, trees in fresh foliage wave over 
us, while beneath their shade the Ruknabad leaps 
down the slope in tiny cascades. Some such spot 
as this, in his time perhaps a garden-side, Hafiz 
must have had in mind when he wrote of the brook. 
Only a short time since, this avenue was lined with 
secular cypress- trees ; not having received their 
pay, the troops felled them to show their dissatis- 
faction and make firewood ! Now it is white and 
without shade. Fortunately the air is balmy, 
and out of the walled gardens other cypresses still 
rear their lustrous cones, so dark a green as to 
seem black. Suddenly two neat cavalrymen in 
uniform ride up, salute, and speak in excellent 
English ; they have been sent by my host that is 
to be, Colonel B. A few moments later he gallops 
up himself; for some unknown reason, I had been 
expecting a man of middle-age with a black beard, 
so it is a great surprise to see a very smart young 
officer. After skirting the town, we reach his 
house — a large white building with a high colon- 
nade at the back of a lovely garden — where his 



ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ 379 

charming wife and mother-in-law are waiting to 
receive us. My room is filled with fragrant yellow 
Marechal Niel roses, and off it there is a bath- 
room with running water — I think the only one 
in all Persia. After fourteen solitary days spent 
in crawling across barren uplands, to find myself 
the recipient of my countrymen's kind hospitality, 
is more than pleasant. 







At^ 



Palace of Xerxes, Persepolis 
" The wild ass stamps over his head ' 



I 




The Audience Hall of Xerxes and the Plain of Mervdasht in a Storm, Persepolis 




EflSgy of the King, Persepolis 
" Is it not passing brave to be a king ? ' 










A Persian Plough, Plain of Mervdasht 



VI 

shIraz to bushir 



381 



VI 

SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 

April 20*.^ 
This morning Colonel B. takes me to call on 
the Governor of Fars. After driving through 
narrow and squalid streets, we stop at the 
gateway of the great regent, Karim Khan's 
palace. We first enter a large enclosure, which 
green trees fill with shade, while wild poppies 
fleck the ground with vermilion spots. In the 
centre there is a small octagonal building of 
yellow brick, once the tomb of Karim Elhan, now 
the headquarters of the Army of Fars. A long 
narrow tank stretches in front of each of the four 
principal sides, its water stagnant, and all its jets 
now stopped. A frieze of exquisite tiles runs 
round the top of the building; the spandrels are 
also filled with brilliant tiling, where tiny figures 
are depicted hunting. The Shah is seated cross- 
legged on a low platform, with a bird perched on 
the railing; his huntsmen are pursuing various 
animals, including antlered stags, blue elephants, 
and bright yellow rhinoceroses. The colours — 

383 



384 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

detached against a white background — are as 
fresh as if made but yesterday, and have a depth 
and brilliance no workman could to-day produce. 
Inside the building a pool of water fills the spot 
where the tomb once stood; over it there is an 
extraordinary honeycomb vault, silver- white with 
gilt edges, painted with birds, and vines, and 
flowers. 

On one side of the court is the royal audience 
hall, a loggia overlooking the gardens. A high 
band of Yazd marble, painted with landscapes 
and other patterns, forms a dado; walls and col- 
umns are covered with mirror-work, and the ceil- 
ing is elaborately painted. In their prime these 
halls of audience raised a few feet above the ground 
must have been a splendid sight when the sovereign 
sat enthroned, and every facet reflected the glint 
of jewels and the thousand hues of brocade, as 
the courtiers ranged themselves around him; to- 
day these tarnished bits of glass and shabby colours 
seem puerile in their decay. 

From here we enter an inner court where cypress 
and orange-trees grow. The walls and recessed 
audience-halls are crumbling; roofs and wood- 
work are decayed and half-fallen; sordid ruin 
haunts even the palace of the Governor of Fars. 
One wall is decorated with the finest Persian tiles 
I have ever seen : on a white ground, figures nearly 
life-size among conventional flowers. Lovely 
yellows are conspicuous, but above all masses 
of that wonderful rose-purple we see on Chinese 



SHfRAZ TO BUSHIR 385 

porcelains. The colours are brilliant yet harmo- 
nious, and rich as those in ancient enamel. The 
Governor lives in a modern building in the centre 
of the court. The room in which he receives us, 
is filled with European furniture in bad taste; 
the Persians do not seem to have even that saving 
grace, an appreciation of their past. So far I have 
not seen the smallest example of the art, which we 
in Europe so greatly admire. The Governor is an 
elderly man, very courteous, but with that sad yet 
deceitful expression about the drooping corners 
of the mouth, which I have noticed on so many 
Persian faces. He has lived in Germany several 
years, and has also travelled in France; he speaks 
both French and German, preferably the latter; 
and has books of German philosophy in the room. 
In appearance, he is a courteous European; in 
reality, there is reason to think him a reactionary, 
who would be glad to have every foreigner in 
Shiraz killed. Were I a Persian, I should pro- 
ably feel the same way. Before leaving, the 
Governor very civilly invites me to dinner later 
in the week. 

Near the palace, is the building once used as 
the andarun (women's apartments) of Karim 
Khan ; it is now the office of the Persian Telegraph 
Co. There is something sardonic about the uses 
to which these degraded buildings are now put. 
A lovely old garden with cypress and fruit-trees 
around a tank shaped like the letter T — which is 
unusual — -still remains; but the walls and column 

25 



386 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

of the pavilion have been stripped of their decora- 
tion, and are bare or daubed with paint 

Rain fell at noon. Driving outside the city at 
sunset, I find that the pastel colours, which were 
disappointing when I first looked down on Shiraz 
from the hills above, have a delicate charm like 
that of a faded print by Harunobu. The cypress 
spires, clustered in the old gardens encircling the 
city, are very beautiful. The air is chill and pel- 
lucid; fields of grain, a deep jewel green, are spar- 
kling with rain drops; tiny clouds of pale orange 
tinged with pink (the colour of tea roses) hang in 
a green-gold sky, above mountains streaked with 
green, brown, and yellow, like marble surfaces. 



April 21^.* 
The British Telegraph-Department owns a 
large compound in Shiraz with houses for the men 
in its service; it is neat and charming. The 
British Consulate, like all British institutions in 
far countries, is maintained in a way befitting 
what is — despite its defects — probably the most 
splendid empire the world has yet seen. The 
Consul is a most unusual person ; still young, he 
has distinguished himself as the interpreter of a 
world-famous expedition, and the only living 
white man who can speak and write one of 
the most difficult of Asiatic languages. He has 
been described as "a man . . . with an offhand 
courtesy which masks an attractively unselfish 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 387 

nature and a quick and observant eye. I think, 
like everyone else who is worth knowing, he needs 
to be known, for it is truer of few people in the 
world than of" him "that he attends strictly and 
exclusively to his own business; a touch of the 
recluse ... he is still a man with whom no 
other man, except by his own fault, could fail 
to be on the best of terms." His intellect is bril- 
liant; his extreme reserve never conceals the real 
depth and delicacy of his feelings; and his invin- 
cible courtesy seems a survival from knightly 
days. A few hours of his companionship suffice 
to make one realise that a dreary journey across 
the wastes of Persia, is well repaid by the privilege 

of his acquaintance 

The bazars of Shiraz are long, vaulted passages 
of yellow brick, like all the others in Persia. The 
only difference is that here the upper half of the 
pointed arch opening into the niche-like shops, 
is closed with a screen of pierced wood. The only 
picturesque part is the dyers' quarters, where long 
narrow strips of dark blue are hung across cords 
to dry, or else depend from the vaults in great 
festoons, almost touching the passers-by. There 
is some colour in the saddlers' bazar, where saddle- 
cloths and leather-work are displayed on the walls 
and arch-screens — large pieces of cloth or leather 
usually bright orange or saffron, with long fringes. 
Aside from these, there is not a single curious or 
beautiful object for sale, nothing but trash from 
Europe. Intercommunication has killed all local 



388 MOSCOW TO THE PERvSIAN GULF 

customs the world over, and has — with the aid 
of machinery — replaced by vulgar products of 
commerce the native handwork that, however 
rude, was at least sincere. We know all this, yet 
continue travelling, lured by the hope that we shall 
some day find a country where this is not true. 



April 22".'^ 
Shiraz is not an entirely peaceful place even in 
the year 1914. Only a few months ago the Bel- 
gian Collector of Finances was dining at this 
house. During dinner, a servant left the compound 
by the gate leading toward the Collector's house; 
he was mistaken for the Collector and fifteen shots 
were fired at him — without injury! — by men 
posted in the ditches beside the road. The door- 
way is still riddled with the bullets. Inves- 
tigation proved this to be an attempt on the 
Collector's life, organised by the richest and most 
influential man in Shiraz. He was arrested and — 
as justice is here accessible to bribes — was de- 
ported. With this affair still fresh in everyone's 
memory, it was rather startling to hear a shot 
just as we were going in to dinner to-night; but 
this time nothing exciting had happened. 



April 23^.'^ 
It has now rained for the greater part of three 
days — at this season an unheard-of occurrence. 




Tang-i-Allahu Akbar 
The first view of Shiraz, supposed to cause all travellers to exclaim, in admiration, " God is 

Great! " 




A Namesake of Timur Lang: Timur Tabrizi 







Graves in the Enclosure of Hafiz's Tomb, Shiraz 




The Tomb of Hafiz, Shiraz 
The canopy is vulgar modern ironwork gaudily painted 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 389 

Early this morning not a cloud was visible, but at 
present the sky is overcast; nevertheless in des- 
peration I start out to see what remains of the 
sights, once the pride of Shiraz. A namesake of 
Tamerlane, Colonel B.'s orderly, Timur, a tall 
Tabriz!, precedes the carriage on horseback, his 
silver pistol-case slung across his .shoulders by an 
embroidered baldric. In a few minutes rain begins 
to fall in sheets. When we reach the city, what 
once were streets, are now rivers of reddish water 
on whose surface rain-drops rebound. It would 
be hard to find a drearier picture than this clay- 
built town, with its soaking walls and streaming 
streets under a sky of the deepest violet, that seems 
to fling down the rain in anger. The tombs of 
Hafiz and Sa'di are on the opposite side of the 
river; on my arrival the entire bed was dry — a 
wide expanse of sand and stone where not even 
one rill meandered ; to-day it is filled to the banks 
by an opaquely rufous stream, running so swiftly 
as almost to sweep away the cattle being forced 
across it from the opposite bank. It is spanned 
by a single bridge; built in days when carriages 
were unknown, its sharp incline and a high step at 
either end, render it impracticable for wheeled 
traffic. (Even to-day, the carriages in Shiraz 
can be counted on one's fingers.) When Timur 
has found a possible ford, we cross slowly with 
water dashing over the carriage steps. 

After winding among mud hovels and passing 
a field of opium-poppies, where a few large white 



390 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

or purple blossoms remain undestroyed by rain, 
we reach the Tomb of Hafiz just as the sun begins 
to reappear. It lies in one of those gardens so 
thickly scattered on the outskirts of the city. In 
general arrangement they are all alike: a plot of 
ground entirely enclosed, on three sides high walls 
of baked yellow brick with pointed arcades in 
slight relief, on the fourth a pavilion raised some 
three or four feet above the earth. This usually 
comprises a lofty loggia, closed of course at the 
back, .and flanked by two stories of very small 
rooms. I had always heard that the grave of 
Persia's favourite poet was well cared for and 
enclosed by a beautiful screen; so expected for 
once to find a charming spot, — it proves one de- 
lusion more. A few trees grow in one corner; 
elsewhere there is no room, the whole enclosure 
being roughly paved with the tombstones of 
devotees, who wished their ashes to lie near those 
of Hafiz. The poet is buried, not — as might be 
expected — in the centre of the court, but somewhat 
to one side. The grave is covered by a high slab 
of marble (inscribed with one of his odes) on which 
a common vase filled with lilacs is placed. Over it 
is an iron pavilion; ten rods, enclosed by a screen 
of vulgar design, support a metal roof, from which 
iron flags rise. It is brightly painted with blue, 
black, and gold, the flags being brilliantly coloured 
like toys. Anything more tawdry, more unsuited 
to canopy the dust of a world-famous writer, 
would be hard to find. The man who wrote: 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 391 

"Open my grave when I am dead and thou shalt 
see a cloud of smoke rising from out of it; then 
shalt thou know that the fire still burns in my 
dead heart — yea, it has set my very winding-sheet 
alight " ; — rests under a shodd}^ structure well fitted 
to shelter the gross patrons of a German beer- 
garden. Standing here, 'Umar's shabby sepulchre 
at Nishapur seems less distressful. A view of 
cypress spires in a garden filled with tangled grass 
is the one thing poetic ; but even this is marred by 
being seen through the ruined loggia, where the 
roof has fallen and the floor is littered with heaps 
of dirt and rotten wood. No ruins I have seen are 
so slovenly and unromantic as those of the delicate 
Persian buildings once veneered and coloured. 

In a chapel-like room opening off the court, 
are the tombs of the most powerful family of 
nobles in Shiraz. Graves and building are neat 
and in good repair; but the vulgarity of every 
object seems incredible in a land which created one 
of the most exquisite forms of art the world has 
seen. The grave-stones are covered with ugly 
cloths and European bath-towels ; on these, tawdry 
lamps with painted or gilded shades, have been 
placed in rows; the room looks like a booth at a 
county-fair. It is a dispiriting sight, in that it 
brings home the decadence of a race which once 
lead the world in refinement of taste. At the 
tomb of Hafiz, where I expected some form of 
loveliness, I have found only vulgarity and decay; 
I leave feeling more depressed than sad. 



392 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

A short distance further on, -^^e reach the 
Garden of the Forty Dervishes. Outside the en- 
trance is a real dervish, with long black hair and 
beard, dressed in flowing white robes, and looking 
as though he had just stepped out of the Bible. 
Within, the slabs which mark the forty graves, 
lie along the walls in two rows, under a tangle of 
orange and cypress-trees now growing wild. 
Here the pavilion has no loggia, all the openings 
being closed by pierced wooden screens. In the 
principal room men are seated on the floor, smok- 
ing qalyuns and drinking tea; for Persians still 
foregather in these ancient gardens. Walking 
about under the shade of splendid trees between 
high walls, it is impossible not to be impressed 
with the secrecy of Persian life. Everything 
takes place in jealously guarded seclusion, behind 
walls that defy the curious. Of course, the Per- 
sian's desire to enjoy the company of his women 
unveiled, has much to do with this; but about 
such imprisoned privacy, there is to us something 
stifling. A walled garden is a lovely spot, but 
here the walls are so high they make one sigh for 
a glimpse over the city toward the hills. Close 
at hand is another garden — that of the Seven 
Dervishes, so called for reasons I cannot discover. 
From the outside these Shiraz gardens are so 
highly pictorial, they seem arranged by famous 
painters. Hieratic cypress-trees raise their black 
cones symmetrically above the buff walls, outlined 
against the tawny flank of hardby hills. Within, 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 393 

this garden is more than usually elaborate, and 
must in its prime have been a place of enchant- 
ment. The loggia is wainscotted with that curious 
marble, greenish-white and onty semi-opaque, 
which comes from Yazd. Three frescos are still 
clearly visible; one of them strangely enough 
represents Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. In front 
of the pavilion lies a stone terrace with long tanks, 
where jets of water once rose and fell; beyond that, 
the cypress alley extends to the wall sternly clos- 
ing the delightful prospect. Just visible through 
the cunningly wrought screen, a man is seated 
at a second-storey window, filling the enclosure 
with a monotonous psalmody. The painted stucco 
is crumbling from the walls, the roof is falling, 
the window-screens hang in pieces, the water 
pools are stagnant, the stone facings are cracked 
and filled with weeds, and what was once the 
garden, is now a tangled wilderness. In its splen- 
dour, when trim and cultivated, with refined 
pleasure-lovers in beautiful robes strolling through 
its alleys, it must have been as lovely a spot as 
man could devise. Indeed, in places such as this, 
even now it is possible dimly to conceive the love- 
liness which caused Shiraz to resound with the 
praise of poets. Built in a fertile plain surrounded 
by barren but fair-coloured hills, this city girdled 
with secret gardens, where birds sang and poets 
lay in the cypress shade, must indeed have been 
an Elysian dwelling. Even in decay, these old 
gardens still retain a charm of their own, and are 



394 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the only things possessed of a little poetry that 
I have seen in Persia. It is pitiful to think that 
within a few years, they will have fallen into ruin 
beyond repair; and that within a half-century 
not one remnant of Persia's splendour will remain. 

The famous Dilgusha Bagh — the Heart- 
Expanding Garden — although untended, is still a 
vast and lovely enclosure, filled with lofty cypress 
and lustrous orange-trees growing in high grass. 
The sun has disappeared once more, and great 
storm-clouds sweep across the sky as we drive 
to Sa'di's Tomb, which lies at the foot of the hills 
beyond even the outskirts of Shiraz, The tomb 
is of course inside a walled garden, but unlike 
Hafiz, Sa'dl is buried in the centre of a bare and 
whitewashed room overlooking the garden. The 
grave is marked by an inscribed slab inside a metal 
screen; it is not impressive, but all the surround- 
ings are neat, free from vulgarity, and less ruinous 
than usual. Consequently it is possible to stand 
with pleasure beside the burial-place of this famous 
lover of the rose, who once wandered over nearly 
all the world known in those olden days, only to 
lay his dust in a garden outside the town where 
he was born. The youth who has the tomb in 
charge, brings out a beautiful manuscript of Sa'di's 
poems, in a once splendid binding on which a 
tracery of rose-branches still shows. As we drive 
home the rain falls heavily once more 

In the afternoon my kindly hosts take me to 
visit the Bagh-i-Takht, a royal garden built by 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 395 

Agha Muhammad Khan — the cruel Qajar eunuch, 
who founded the reigning dynasty. To cross the 
river above the bridge, is even more difficult than 
it was this morning below it. The river-side is 
muddy, so two boys with their skirts tucked in 
their girdles, run along and tug at the wheels with 
loud cries of " Ya! *Ali!" whenever we stick fast. 
The carriage drops into the river with a splash, 
and nearly overturns as the horses stop short; 
when we reach the other bank they can hardly 
drag us out. The Bagh-i-Takht deserves its 
name — the Throne Garden; it is built on the 
hillside on top of seven terraces, rather like an 
Italian villa, and quite different from anything 
I have seen in Persia. The terraces are very 
narrow — little wider than large steps — and adorned 
with elaborate water- works; the retaining walls 
are faced with small arcades once gay with tiles. 
In front of the superimposed terraces, running 
their whole width, is an immense tank now dry, 
with fragments of a central fountain from which 
four lions once spouted water. Tank and terrace- 
basins are now merely sunken spaces with fissured 
stone margins and bottoms covered with earth. 
Of the great walls once enclosing the garden, no 
sign remains, and of trees, only one alley to the 
right of the tank — although many others were 
still standing a few years ago. Under the cypress- 
shade the body of the unfortunate Swedish officer 
killed at Kazarun a few months ago, has been 
buried. The new grass seems doubly sad this 



396 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

afternoon, for word has just come that another 
of the Swedish officers — a young and charming 
man whom I often met at Tihran — has just been 
killed by brigands. There are moments when the 
whole wretched country does not seem worth the 

life of one European Of the buildings 

on the terrace-top nothing remains; just a few 
shabby modern houses, in one of which the English 
physician has installed a hospital that, in remote 
Shiraz, is a monument to what British energy can 
accomplish. A few sick and wounded gendarmes 
look out of the windows across the ruin of what 

once was a Shah's pleasure dwelling 

The elements, as well as the natives, do all they 
can to lay waste the gardens of Shiraz. Last night's 
storm unchained all its fury on the Bagh-i-Naw, 
where the English manager of the Bank now lives; 
this morning all but one of the splendid cypress- 
trees lie uprooted in a tangled ruin. 



April 25*^ 
The rain continues to fall in heavy showers, 
and has postponed my departure for Bushir. In 
the afternoon it is clear enough to permit me to 
visit the Bagh-i-Iram, which is still inhabited. 
It is the largest and most beautiful garden I have 
seen in Persia. The house is two-storeyed and of 
stucco, with three loggia and curiously shaped 
pediments on the second storey. Tiles decorate 
various parts, particularly fine ones in the pedi- 




The View from Hafiz's Tomb, Shiraz 




*«7.^4^i^ 



Garden of the Forty Dervishes, Shiraz 




Inside the Garden of the Seven Dervishes, Shiraz 



■ A iO . " ' t 




Garden of the Seven Dervishes, on the Outskirts of Shiraz 



SHIRAZ TO BUvSHIR 397 

ments where the Shah is depicted in his garden. 
Altogether it is a fanciful but pleasant dwelling. 
A large court precedes it, divided into four par- 
terres by paved pathways and a long tank. Here 
orange and lemon-trees grow alternately, among 
rose bushes covered with pink blossoms; flowers, 
trees, and houses, all mirrored in the water. Be- 
hind the villa lies a large and splendid garden; 
first of all a stone terrace with a deep pool of clear 
water, and beyond that as fine an alley as any 
garden can boast — an avenue of trim grass, 
where in the centre a narrow water-channel runs 
down the levels, each only a few inches lower than 
the one preceding; on either side an endless line 
of stately trees. Each row starts with a single 
stone-pine, a high branchless trunk terminating 
in a wide umbrella of dark boughs; then great 
cypress-trees, centuries old and almost black, 
interspersed with planes so trimmed that only a 
clump of bright green leaves is left on top of the 
long trunks, densely draped with brown-berried 
ivy. The contrast between the varying greens 
is delightful, while the slimness and pallor of the 
plane-trees make the cypresses seem darker and 
more immense. To right and left of the main 
avenue, like lateral aisles flanking a cathedral 
nave, are narrower alleys of slender pines. The 
vista down the long aisle of cypress and plane is 
finally closed by a small pavilion, through which 
the water conduit passes into still another en- 
closure. The whole garden, while very old and 



398 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

somewhat overgrown, is in no way neglected. It 
can bear comparison with the villas of Italy, and 
really is not unworthy of what the words ' ' a Per- 
sian garden" suggest The storm is sweep- 
ing towards us again, and black clouds close the 
stately aisle; but this old garden I shall always 
recall as the one thing in Persia that has given 
me unalloyed delight. What must not have been 
the charm of Shiraz, when it abounded in such 
gardens as this, where pleasure-seekers subtly 
refined listened to music and the impassioned 
verse of Sa'di or of Hafiz? 



April 27*> 
The charm of ShTraz grows with time. Its situ- 
ation is really full of grace; the plain in which it 
lies, although large, is still small enough to seem 
well sheltered; while the hills surrounding it are 
beautiful in colour, and just high enough to please 
yet not to oppress. The whole valley is now a 
smiling field of vivid green, spread about Shiraz 
like the skirts of a mantle. Seen nearby, it is a 
sorry town; but from a distance when only its 
cypress spires and a few domes show, it might 
still be the home of poets. Driving toward the 
Gulshan garden, the road passes through fields 
of young grain — broad surfaces of emerald rip- 
pling slowly in the breeze. Wild poppies grow 
by the wayside, or in the fields make an occasional 
splash of scarlet sprinkled with the blue of com- 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 399 

flowers, half hidden below taller stalks of grain 
and poppies. The larger part of Gulshan is 
modern; but an old terrace with a basin of 
stagnant water, about which cypresses are grouped, 
still remains. Beyond this, is a long alley, where 
the feathery foliage of pale green chindrs contrasts 
delightfully with the sombre C3^press-trees. Be- 
hind them a thicket stretches, full of large snow- 
ball bushes hung with pure white globes. The 
conduit, once murmuring with water, now lies 
dry and cracked. Through the trees distant moun- 
tain-tops are just visible, and the air is noisy 
with the bubbling croak of frogs, floating in the 
basin with distended cheeks. 



April 28t> 
To-day I accompany my hostess, when she 
calls at the Bagh-i-Iram. We are ushered in by 
the chief eunuch, a person of almost black skin 
and uncertain age. A eunuch dressed in a frock- 
coat and a European overcoat, seems an anomaly. 
I remain in the fore-court, while Mrs. B. enters 
the house to pay her visit to the khdnum or chief 
wife of the owner, who is the person recently de- 
ported for instigating the attempt on the life of 
the Collector of Finances. In full sunlight the 
garden seems even lovelier than before. The 
roses now being in full bloom, each bush is a pink 
mass of widespread blossom, about to scatter its 
petals. Half hidden among the glossy leaves of 



400 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the orange and lemon-trees, which alternate so 
picturesquely with the roses, are small closed buds, 
round and white like pearls; a few have already 
begun to open and fill the air with intoxicating 
scents. To my intense surprise, the head eunuch 
soon comes out, bringing word that the khdnum 
wishes to receive me. However elderly, I feel 
sure the lady would not have extended so unusual 
an invitation, were her lord not in exile. 

I find the khdnum and Mrs. B. in a scrupulously 
neat room with a fine carpet. I have been told 
that she is old, and what I can see of her, bears 
this out. She is enveloped from head to foot in a 
veil of light blue silk, held across the face so that 
the eyes alone are visible. Two female attendants 
are present, their more loosely drawn veils per- 
mitting me to see that they are almost black. 
The eunuch stands in front of the door, holding 
one of his hands in the other. Through great 
windows opening on a balcony, I overlook the 
beautiful garden caressed by sun, and hear a con- 
tinual twittering of birds dominated by a night- 
ingale's liquid call. Conversation is formal and 
limited, as Mrs. B. speaks but little Persian and I 
none. After we have been offered cakes and 
sweets, which I find difficult to swallow politely, 
we are taken to see the view from the principal 
room. Situated on the garden axis, it rises through 
two storeys like an audience-chamber, and is 
entirely open on the garden side. The great 
basin lies at my feet, its green water rippled by 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 401 

wind; beyond it, stretches the glorious cypress 
alley, with the chindr tops emerging at intervals 
like emerald banners. This tiled residence — 
despite its modern furnishing — will, with its 
wonderful old garden, always remain in my mind 
as the one thing I have seen in Persia which 
conveys an impression of what life must have 
been in the days of Shah 'Abbas. 



April 29*?^ 
To-day a last drive to visit the gardens that 
have pleased me most. The poppy fields near 
the Tomb of Hafiz are in full bloom; masses of 
sturdy foliage from which long stalks rise, carry- 
ing wide crinkled cups of white or at times 
magenta. At the Garden of the Seven Dervishes, 
as soon as I enter I am conscious that the orange- 
trees have begun to blossom, for the air is redolent 
with a faint but heady perfume. Ruined as it 
is, the ancient pleasance is still a lovely spot. To 
escape the company of my escort, without whom 
etiquette forbids one to move in Shiraz, I mount 
to one of the little chambers in the second-storey 
pavilion. Leaning on a ruined window-screen, 
the whole garden spreads below me. Here cy- 
presses are for once replaced by magnificent pines, 
with tall shaggy boles — golden red near the ground, 
but grey where the boughs begin to spread their 
parasol of green needles. Between the rows of 
pine, orange-trees grow, with the waxen white of 
26 



402 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

new buds just visible among the shining leaves. 
Untended flowers are scattered among weeds and 
wild grass. In the centre of the enclosure, under 
the broad shade of a tree resembling maples, the 
Seven Dervishes are buried beneath blocks of 
stone, inscribed with beautiful Persian characters 
enclosed in cartouches. At my feet the tree-tops 
are reflected on the stagnant olive surface of the 
terrace basin, beside which a few flowers give a 
touch of brilliant colour. A woman, wrapped in 
a mantle of rusty black, crouches beside the tank 
at the feet of the dervish I saw the other day. 
Dressed in a single garment of dirt}?- white, leav- 
ing his chest bare, with his bronzed skin, hatless 
head (here very unusual), and long black locks, 
he seems an apostle come to life. Above the 
wall through the pines, I can see the tapering 
cypress-trees in the neighbouring garden; while 
far away across green meadows the roofs of Shiraz 
stretch in fawn-coloured rows. In places clusters 
of foliage interrupt their lines, and over all two 
pointed domes appear to float. The air is still, 
except for passing breezes that just sway the 
smallest branches and then die. The only sounds 
are : the buzzing of a fly, the caw of distant crows, 
and the whirr of a pigeon's flight. The sky is not 
hidden, but veiled by a haze of uniform grey, 
through which light filters like a tremulous ghost. 
The stillness and abandon of all in sight breed 
melancholy, but one that is gentle and pleasant 
to savour. 




The Tomb of Sa'di, Outside Shiraz 




Windows of the Room where Sa'di is Buried, Shiraz 



I -1 











♦ 4 



^J^ . ^ 





A Hospital in the Ruins of a King's Pleasure Dwelling 

The Bigh-i-Takht, or Throne Garden, was built by the ferocious Agha Muhammad Khan, Qajar, founder 

of the reignous Persian dynasty, and is now used as a hospital 




SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 403 

On the way to Sa'dl's Tomb, the fields are dotted 
with groups of women squatting on the ground 
beside the rivulets, washing and drying their 
linen. Near the enclosure a crowd of men is 
busy, washing lamb-skins in the brook, and then 
spreading them in rows to dry beside the road, 
like giant beetles flattened out. The first spring 
day would seem to have brought all the towns- 
folk out to take the air; the formerly deserted 
court of Sa'dl's Tomb is thronged with men 
seated under the trees smoking qalyuns, while the 
women prepare food in separate groups. As I 
pass they draw their black veils across their faces, 
but their white masks are thrown back, leaving 
eyes and forehead visible. At the pavilion win- 
dows men are smoking cross-legged on the floor, 
precisely as depicted in ancient miniatures. A 
love of flowers and the open, courtesy, and hospi- 
tality, are virtues which still redeem the Persians. 
The guardian of the tomb hastens to present me 
with a small bouquet of purple iris — a pleasant 
gift, even when offered to obtain a fee. Having 
really come to see the illuminated manuscript, 
I ask to have it brought. It is a joy to turn the 
half-soiled pages of this old book, with its fine 
calligraphy enclosed in irregular cartouches shaped 
like clouds. The intervals are fitted with gold, 
traced with tiny flowerets in bright clear colours 
like enamel. Some leaves have a solid border, 
where gold, indigo, and carmine, glitter as though 
laid but yesterday. There are a few paintings. 



404 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

much damaged but still fair. The delicacy of the 
flowers, the intricacy of design, and the perfect 
taste, are beyond praise. The whole book is like 
jewel work; turning the pages, it is painful to 
think that negligence will soon destroy it — unless 
saved by sale to a foreigner, which elsewhere 
could be vandalism. 

The Dilgusha Bagh is also thronged with poor 
folk come to enjoy an outing. Several women, 
veiled in pale blue and pink silk, hurry down a 
path to escape my presence. They must be per- 
sons of quality to wear such unusual stuffs. Men 
and women stroll about, or sit in the shade of 
orange-trees. When they walk, these black-stoled 
figures, with a white patch where a face should be, 
look more like inauspicious phantoms than like 
women. The old garden where some noble Shi- 
razl once enjoyed a guarded privacy, is to-day 
the ruined playground of the poor. The crowd 
and the company of my orderly, who feels it his 
duty to keep within ten feet of me, prevent my 
lingering Shiraz, girdled with yellow- 
green hills and crowned with the sombre cypresses 
of its ancient gardens, set down among green 
meadows and white fields of opium-poppy, is the 
one place in Persia that has really charmed me. 

To-morrow I start for Bushir, the Persian Gulf, 
and a boat to India. I am to have the pleasure 
of escorting Mrs. B.'s mother as far as Bushir. 
We are to have a guard of soldiers and an officer 
belonging to the newly formed Army of Pars, as 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 405 

the road is still insecure ; indeed a few months ago 
it would scarcely have been safe to travel, even 
with a larger escort. My guide, Husayn, I dis- 
charged yesterday, since I no longer needed him, 
and had caught him disobeying orders. He 
was an inefficient and dirty beast, who made me 
long for even the days of Aghajan. Colonel B. is 
sending his head servant — who speaks English — 
with us, and also various conveniences and pro- 
visions ; so we should travel with a comfort I have 

as yet not known Departure at each 

stage is painful; one is reluctant to leave comfort 
and pleasant places, above all to lose the company 
of hosts whose consideration and hospitality have 
made a visit memorable. This regret is, in places 
so remote, heightened by the thought that probably 
one may never meet them again. 



April 30*.^ 
At four o'clock it was still night and the stars 
brilliant; but they soon dimmed, as the dark sky 
began to pale and turn golden green along the 
horizon. Full day has now broken, cool and fresh 
after the showers of last night, and all the poplars 
are bowing in the breezes. The mules and escort 
were ordered to be here at four o'clock, but five 
has passed before they arrive; it is six when they 
finally leave. At seven Mrs. D. and I start in 
the carriage to overtake the caravan at the first 
stage. Colonel and Mrs. B. with our escort 



4o6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

follow on horseback. In the clear light of early 
morning they are a picturesque sight, galloping 
after us between green fields of grain, spattered 
with poppies and swept by wind. In an hour we 
reach Chinar-i-Rahdar, beyond which carriages 
cannot go. The mules are waiting, and a crowd 
has gathered outside the caravanserai to watch 
our movements. 

After farewells have been said to relatives, and 
— in my case — kindly hosts, whose courtesy has 
enhanced the pleasures of Shiraz, we start toward 
Bushir. Our caravan is quite imposing; eleven 
pack animals, Mrs. D., myself. Said, two Persian 
servants sent by Mrs. B., ten mounted soldiers, 
and an officer. Three of the escort come from 
the neighbourhood of Tabriz, fine fellows with 
firm handsome faces and neat bearing, who look 
as though they might really fight when necessary. 
Their captain has been to the Jesuit College at 
Beyrout, where he learned to speak quite fluent 
French. He is tall, well set up, and very civil; 
not a bad sort, although his Persian blood obliges 
him to boast and gallop about continually in the 
hope of impressing. That he sits a horse splen- 
didly, I must admit. 

The road rises rapidly among barren hillocks, 
which from time to time open out, affording views 
over uplands and valleys. The hills are russet 
with sandy patches of white; far away the pros- 
pect is closed by the side of a mountain, ribbed 
horizontally and richly coloured purple. Strings 




Tomb of Karim Khan, in the Garden of his Palace, Shiraz 
Tombstone and body have disappeared, and the building now serves as headquarters 
for the army of Fars 




Ceiling of the Tomb of Karim Khan, Shiraz 



X' 




Tiles in Inner Court: Palace of Karim Khan, Shiriz 




Where Telegraph Instruments Have Taken the Place of a King's Wives. The Andarun 
of Karim Khan, Shiraz 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 407 

of mules and donkeys pass frequently; for the 
road to Bushir was closed to trade for so many 
months by trouble with the brigands, that it is 
now alive with caravans conveying congested 
merchandise. We have already climbed more 
than a thousand feet above Shiraz, and the hills 
have become covered with green and even with 
shrubs, in Persia always a welcome sight. Gen- 
darmerie posts are numerous — fort-like buildings 
on hill-crests, flying faded flags. An incident 
typically Persian has just occurred; we came upon 
a poor donkey lying beside the road, its back one 
mass of bleeding sores, and its impotent legs 
folded under the body, as it slowly rolled its en- 
feebled head in a manner horrible to watch. The 
owners were walking off, about to leave it to a 
death of slow agony, since it could no longer take 
one more tortured step. At my suggestion, one 
of the escort ended its misery. The poor creature 
is hardly out of sight, when we meet a camel's 
carcass almost denuded of flesh, so it is possible 
to see that one of its hind legs had been broken 
near the hip. It is more than certain that it 
was abandoned here without one thought, to 
agonise for hours if not days. The roads in Persia 
are nothing but endless shambles. To those who 
can see no difference, except in degree of develop- 
ment, between man and beast, and to whom the 
sight of suffering in animals is, because of their 
helplessness, more intolerable than that of men; 
travel here seems more than can be endured. 



4o8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

The sky has for some time been veiled; storm- 
clouds now gather, and soon rain begins to fall 
sharply. Before long, however, the sun reappears. 
The road winds through a valley, on the edge of 
a high cliff, above the broad but half -dry bed of 
a river, twisting its way swiftly through the 
stones. The trunks of small willows rise in 
clumps from the water, which rushes by in beryl- 
coloured streams. Their pleasant sound floats 
upward, and the eye is gladdened by the first clear 
brook I have seen in Persia. Khan-i-Zinian has 
long been visible, and is now drawing rapidly 
nearer. It is a squalid group of hovels beside 
a large fortified caravanserai, where a vaulted 
gateway gives admittance to a courtyard enclosed 
by high arcades. Although less filthy than some 
I have encountered, it is not a pleasant resting- 
place. The assurance that comfortable rooms, 
maintained by the Telegraph Department, were 
to be found at every halting-place on the road to 
Bushir, proves as delusive as all the other promises 
of greater comforts, given every time one starts 
a new journey across Persia 

Night in a Persian caravanserai. A little moon 
is westering through a grey-blue sky strewn with 
stars. Though only an upturned white crescent, 
it gives light enough to see across the court, where 
a few beasts stand with softly tinkling bells. 
Here and there a golden expanse breaks the dark- 
ness, where a candle is burning in an arcade filled 
with strange shadows, within which men are 



SHIRAZ to BUSHIR 409 

grouped about a tiny fire, cooking or smoking. 
The hum of voices echoes through the night, at 
times rising into cries or shrill altercation. 



May I'.' 
To avoid travelling in the heat of mid-day, we 
are to make a very early start. At three o'clock 
it is darkest night — the moon having set — and 
the stars are veiled by mist. Our chdrwdddrs 
are unusually bad, making no attempt to load 
the animals, until I lay about me with a thong 
given me for the purpose at Shiraz. Blows being 
the only language these men understand, a few 
months in Persia would make a philanthropist 
turn slaver. When we leave, day has begun to 
break. Above the mountain-tops behind the 
caravanserai, hang long trails of copper cloud 
mingled with others coloured like a bird's breast. 
Below us the shrunken river runs swiftly through 
its gravel bed, filling our ears with its swirling 
murmur as we ride through the chill air of early 
day. Across the river lies a low range of swelling 
hills, dotted with trees — a rare sight in so barren 
a country. Behind them a high but still verdant 
chain, on which snow lingers, catches on its crests 
the first flush of the ascending sun. Ahead of us 
the sky is lifeless yet, covered with violet films of 
cloud. Before long the road drops toward the 
river, where a picturesque old bridge with green 
bushes waving from its crannies, crosses the grey 



4IO MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

expanse of gravel. Several streams meander 
through the river bed, and have to be forded be- 
fore reaching the bridge; their clear aquamarine 
water twisting among willows and silver gravel is 
pleasant to see. 

After a sudden turn, a cliff -like row of peaks 
appears suddenly above the dull green hills we 
have skirted, catching a gleam of sun, and outlined 
in luminous grey against a sky of deep violet. 
The road now climbs the steep face of a long spur, 
until it reaches a slowly rising ridge, then takes 
its way between thorny trees just putting forth 
small leaves. Far below to the right, the river 
is visible winding through the valley from a point 
where the view is closed by a roclcy pyramid of 
grey mountain streaked with snow. On the left 
a brook is precipitated down a small ravine. 
Behind us the plain of Khan-i-Zinian stretches 
its green levels, until the mountain cliffs hem it in. 
Above us a fortified gendarmerie post perches on a 
crest beside the road. When we pass, three or 
four gendarmes line up and salute; the head and 
shoulders of another show above the tower parapet, 
looking too big for the tiny tower — precisely as 
figures do in the rude images of early art. After 
a little the road enters a level upland then turns 
suddenly, revealing the plain around Dasht-i- 
Arzhan far below us, enclosed by hills like a 
fiat-bottomed bowl. It stretches from side to 
side without an undulation, marbled green broken 
by a white expanse, and^far away near one edge 




One Persian Garden Not in Ruins: Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 




Forecourt, Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 




The Upper End of the Great Alley, Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 411 

— by the blue surface of a little lake. The forma- 
tion of the nearest hills is most fantastic; first of 
all a series of gentle slopes, sparsely covered with 
trees and shrubs, swell outward to grasp the plain ; 
this is interrupted by a narrow band of strata, 
acting as base to a perpendicular wall of rock, 
divided vertically by great rows of flutes capped 
with mounds of verdure. On the opposite side 
of the plain, a line of mountains thinly set with 
trees rises toward a lofty cliff, all but meeting the 
tremendous wall of ruddy rock, curiously scooped 
and seamed, which towers over Dasht-i-Arzhan. 
Looking down from here, the village seems a 
succession of brown ledges sloping upward from 
plain to cliff. Just beyond it, a grove stands out 
against the rock in rounded masses of green. 

A long descent brings us to the telegraph-station, 
where we halt an hour to rest and breakfast. In 
the meanwhile, clouds of mist begin to drift 
through the gap between the mountain ranges 
that hem in the valley. When we start again, 
the sky is overcast and threatening storm. We 
pass through the coppice, where deep grass grows 
profusely in the shade of splendid trees. Both 
hard at hand and across the plain, narrow water- 
falls leap down the cliffs in white streams. From 
openings like fountains in the base of the sheer 
wall of ruddy rock beside us, water gushes forth 
and — after falling a few feet — runs through the 
grass in hurried rills of clear water. Storm-clouds 
have by this time burst through the mountain 



412 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

gap, or rushed across their crests. Rain now 
descends hard and fast; it is unpleasantly cold, 
and not at all the weather one might expect in 
southern Persia on the first of May. The white 
chequers seen from the heights before reaching 
Dasht-i-Arzhan prove to be faintly golden fields 
of dried grain. The green portions of the plain 
are broken by bright yellow patches, where a 
flower like the buttercup grows. After skirting 
the mountains on two sides of the plateau, the 
road — when it has almost reached the furthest 
point — turns sharply to the right, ascending the 
precipitous mountain-side in long zigzags. 

We climb through a forest of oak-trees, with 
boughs just tipped by small furry leaves of yel- 
lowish green. The earth is red but almost hid 
by yellow stones, among which the animals pick 
their way with great difficulty, the ascent being 
in itself steep enough to fatigue. As we mount, 
the plain spreads its wide surface below us, col- 
oured with every tone of grey, green, and yellow, 
except where the lake reflects the mountain face 
in many-tinted lines. Far away higher uplands 
and distant mountains stand out clearly; near 
at hand a peak spotted with snow looms above 
the oaks. Through their boughs, I can see the 
pack animals toil and twist upward with a merry 
chiming of their bells. Curiously enough, whilst 
the rocks beside the path are almost red, the 
larger boulders a few feet further off are bluish 
grey. At first, small mauve flowers and a kind 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 413 

of buttercup grew infrequently among the stones; 
as we near the summit, the ground is almost con- 
cealed by rows of a large flower called (I believe) 
in Persian, the Crown Imperial, Out of lush and 
clustered leaves, a tall brown stalk rises until 
terminated by a smaller whorl, from which three 
or four bell-shaped blossoms depend, bright red 
spotted with blackish purple near the stem. The 
rain has ceased and the sky begins to lighten; I 
can even see a small cliff beetling above the trees 
against a patch of intense blue. At last, after 
climbing fourteen hundred feet in forty-five 
minutes, we reach the top — a depression in the 
crests seven thousand five hundred feet above 
sea level. 

We are now about to descend the first of the 
celebrated kutdls, as the mountain walls between 
here and Bushir are called. In a comparatively 
short distance the land drops nearly eight thou- 
sand feet from this point to the sea — not as might 
be expected, in a continuous slope, but in one of 
the strangest formations existing anywhere. The 
Persian plateau is reached by a flight of titanesque 
steps. A few miles back from the coast, the first 
range of mountains ascends precipitously to a level 
plain, beyond which another gigantic cliff arises; 
altogether there are four of these nearly perpen- 
dicular walls, separated each from the other by 
fertile terraces of varying widths, but none — I 
should think — over ten or fifteen miles. Persia 
— with its four stupendous terraces, their base 



414 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

laved by the Persian Gulf, rising skyward to 
support a vast plateau — is really the immeasur- 
able ruin of a hanging-garden, such as was once 
the glory of Nineveh or Babylon, only wrought 
by cosmic force in more than human proportion. 

One of the most remarkable panoramas I have 
seen, now lies before us. Close at hand a pyramid 
of bare stone towers over all, sinking toward a 
long spur that just allows one glimpse of blue 
water very far away and several thousand feet 
below. In front of us the kutdl descends abruptly. 
As far as the eye can reach, it looks out across a 
sea of sharp ridges separated by strips of plain; 
their peculiarity is, that instead of rising vertically 
with more or less equal slopes as hills usually do, 
they seem to slant sharply toward the coast, like 
waves solidified when just on the point of toppling 
over, or like a house of cards about to fall. To 
convey the curious effect thus produced, is impos- 
sible. The nearest range is covered with small trees, 
between which the buff earth shows distinctly; 
but those farther off are barren and eroded in 
sweeping lines. We descend the precipitous 
mountain-side in the glare of a now blazing sun. 
The small portions of ground not covered by 
stones, are dry and almost without a blade of 
green. Occasionally a little brook murmurs among 
the boulders. Even the trees are more thinly 
scattered than on the other slope, the whole char- 
acter of the scenery being more arid and southern. 

At last we discover Mian Kutal (Half-way 





A Lateral Alley, Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 




Bagh-i-Iram, Shiraz 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 415 

Kutal) far below us — a ruinous caravanserai 
half-way up the kutdl on the flat top of a hill- 
shoulder. After winding between large boulders, 
where springs gush out and then leap down the 
slope, we reach the more than usually unpleasant 

caravanserai 

Sunset on the kutdl. Behind me is the perpen- 
dicular mountain we descended at noon, dotted 
with trees, but none the less in general effect a wall 
of buff turning to rose. A short distance in front 
of me, the hill suddenly drops over a thousand 
feet down to a valley, where the grey line of a river- 
bed meanders through scattered trees. On its 
further side a range of rock slants away, its crest 
sharply waved, and its steep slope ribbed with 
long flutes. To the right the valley widens until 
closed by mountains of darkest violet. West- 
ward the sky is a blaze of orange fading into pale 
green, and then rising in tones of ever deeper blue 
toward the zenith, where the moon's first crescent 
floats, chilly white. To the east across bare 
ridges, a cloud-bank flushes rose. The chirp of 
crickets fills the air; from the hillside behind me, 

a cuckoo's solemn chime rings out The 

light is dying. Eastward the clouds have faded, 
and are now all but lost in the greenish sky. In 
the west, the orange glow has paled and spread 
out in a faintly yellow luminosity, melting into 
tremulous expanses of mauve, through which the 
first stars begin to glimmer. Overhead the now 
glittering moon appears translucent. A goat, 



4i6 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

followed by her kid, strolls along the caravanserai 
roof, where gendarmes have also gathered. A pool 
of water in the valley far below reflects the last 
rays, glowing like fire; near it two or three real 
fires begin to spangle the dark green shadows with 
spots of gold. On the hill-crest high above me, 
an inexplicable flame stands out against the dying 
sky; can it be a brigand camp? Anything is pos- 
sible at twilight near a ruined caravanserai high 
on a Persian hillside ; but the hour is too tranquil 
to heed or care for aught, as peace and dreams open 
ebumean gates. 



May 2"^? 
Day is breaking when we leave before five 
o'clock. The steepest of paths leads down the 
kutdl we half descended yesterday, among bould- 
ers and loose stones, which make the mules' work 
very difficult. Oaks grow on all sides, but far 
apart in ground entirely covered with rocks. 
Flaming clouds float across the sky, as the light 
loses its early pallor and turns live gold. We soon 
reach the level — fifteen hundred feet below Mian 
Kutal — and find ourselves in a fertile valley. 
Oaks are frequent, and fields of grain still sparkling 
with dew cover the earth. Occasionally we pass 
white fields of opium-poppies, pale and dreamy. 
On all sides are high hills sparsely covered with 
trees, above which the sun has just begun to pour 
glowing rays that fill the valley with golden haze. 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 417 

The road now turns down a gorge to the left. 
After a little, I can see a distant ridge crossing the 
narrow valley-mouth, and beyond that a plain 
with one end of a blue lake many hundred feet 
below. Knowing that the Kutal-i-Dukhtar (the 
Daughter's Pass) lies between us and Kazarun, 
I suppose that we must climb this ridge and then 
descend. Our path now slopes downward around 
a shoulder, looping back upon itself, and over- 
hanging the plain. This constant gazing down 
immea urable heights, makes one feel as though 
standing on the balconies of the world, looking 
out across space. At this spot I realise that the 
famous kutdl must be the side of the mountain 
upon whose top we now are, but cannot imagine 
how we are to descend. A donkey's carcass in a 
state of liquid putrefaction lies among the stones 
a few feet off the road, emitting so intolerable a 
stench we are almost sickened. 

A few hundred yards more, and the manner of 
our descent at last becomes clear. The lofty hill 
over whose sharp edge I am peering, is a sort of 
headland at the extremity of a vast semicircle 
of rufous and almost perpendicular cliffs. On the 
vertical face of a rocky wall seven hundred feet 
high, a pathway has been cut, just wide enough 
for two mules to pass with their loads, and paved 
with cobble-stones between which large holes 
have been worn. A continuous slope being of 
course impossible, it winds up in a series of short 
but very steep zigzags, one over the other — just 



41 8 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULP 

as a rude stairway might ascend a terrace front 
of gigantic proportions. Caravan after caravan 
of diminutive donkeys, carrying burdens larger 
than themselves, is toiling painfully upward. As 
we start down, the cries of muleteers float up 
incessantly, re-echoing from the cliffs. Here we 
are in shade, but in front of us everything is yellow 
with sun-flood. This incredible staircase, thronged 
with weary animals, and echoing with cries from 
top to bottom of its dizzy height, is as fantastic 
a sight as man could imagine. 

We have gone only a few feet, when Said calls 
to Mrs. D. and me to take a rough path around 
some rocks, in order to avoid the sight of more 
carrion; but it cannot be escaped. It is another 
tiny donkey, that must have dropped head fore- 
most on the way down; for its head and neck are 
doubled under, and completely hidden by the 
body. A child could have lifted the poor creature 
into a less tortured posture, but there the Persians 
left it to agonise. There are moments when the 
sight of all this suffering and indifference fills me 
with such rage and disgust, I "see red." At last 
we reach the bottom, and start down a gentle but 
still stony declivity. On the kutdl wild carnations 
grew; here among the roadside-boulders there 
are fuzzy bushes with small flowers, white and 
bell-shaped, with tiny lavender weeds actually 
entangled in the lower branches. 

We have now reached the level, and, after 
rounding the last spur of the great hemicycle of 




Mills Outside Shiraz 




Chinar-i-Rahdar 
The crowd watching our caravan start for Bushir 




One of Our Escort, 'Ali Khan, Descending a Kutal 




n '■'" 









View from a Kutal Looking Down on the Caravanserai of Mian Kutal 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 419 

cliffs, find ourselves in the cultivated plain of 
Kazarun. A large tablet is cut in the rock, but 
appears modern and without interest. To the 
left a lake, silvery blue and dotted with a few 
islets without vegetation, stretches away until 
lost to sight around a bend in the mountains. 
Across the valley is another range of hills, bare 
and seamed. Turning sharply to the right, we 
move westward across a stone causeway in the 
middle of a marshy pool full of fish ; on either hand, 
tall thick clumps of sedge are hung with the white 
trumpets of morning-glory vines. The road now 
passes between high grain covering all the valley- 
floor, except where interrupted by fields of very 
tall opium-poppies. To my disgust, I find that 
Kazarun is still two farsakhs away. 

As this valley has recently been the site of 
much fighting, and is still the haunt of brigands, 
our captain divides his ten men into two columns, 
which he heads rifle in hand, as they ride single 
file through the grain on either side of the road, — 
rather a picturesque sight. As we approach 
Kazarun, there are orchards of pomegranate trees, 
covered with small trumpets of the brightest ver- 
milion. ^ Along the roadside runs a rude attempt 
at fences (the first I have seen in Persia) made of 
thorn bushes. 

The poppy fields are now more numerous, and 
the plants so tall they reach the shoulders of the 
men engaged in scraping the huge seed-capsules 
to let the opium exude. Women and girls — half 



420 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

naked under their dust-coloured rags — are at 
work among the golden grain. A grove of date- 
palms is now in sight, one of the gardens for which 
this place is famed; it is a walled enclosure ap- 
parently solid with verdure, out of which the long 
trunks and clustered leaves of the palms emerge. 

The town is visible at last, — low mud houses 
interspersed with date trees. The gardens are 
scattered over the plain in green squares. As we 
ride through the streets, we pass the ruins of house 
after house, blown up by gendarmes after the at- 
tack in which their Swedish commandant was 
killed. Poor people! first the brigands pillage 
them, then retire, leaving the more or less innocent 
to be punished for the misdeeds of others. Here 
there is a pleasant but fortified telegraph-station, 
filled with little holes where attacking bullets 
have recently struck. As there is only one vacant 
room. Major T. — the Swedish officer in command 
of the gendarmes — very kindly offers to put me 
up. Were it not for the kindness which every 
European shows to travellers in Persia, their lot 
would be intolerable. The telegraph-inspector 
and the operator have an excellent luncheon ready 
and do everything to make KazarOn agreeable. 
In Major T.'s house, there is a boy of eight or 
nine years, recovering from a gun-shot wound 
received some months ago, while bringing the 
gendarmes a message. I am eager to visit the 
famous bas-reliefs at Shapur, a few miles across 
the plain ; but the British Consul at Shiraz strongly 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 421 

opposed my attempting it, and now the Major 
tells me that if I insist on doing so, he will not 
answer for our safety, even with the gendarmes 
whom he has ordered to reinforce our escort to- 
morrow. Only last week nine of his men were 
killed here in a fight with brigands. As I am 
travelling with a lady, Shapur must perforce 
remain unvisited. 



May 3'"? 
At half-past three I am waked by the bells of 
our mules, entering the court to take their loads. 
When dressed I walk to the telegraph-station to 
breakfast with Mrs. D. The guards had to be 
warned last evening of my coming, as they have 
orders to fire at the slightest sound during the 
night. It is broad day when we start, with four 
extra gendarmes as well as our usual escort of 
soldiers. The masses of foliage which seem to 
burst from the garden-walls we pass, are jewel- 
like in the intensity and richness of their greens. 
We continue down the valley, which here differs 
in no respect from the upper end. Our escort 
divides into groups, riding off through the fields 
in every direction to reconnoitre. Major T. soon 
overtakes us, on his way to inspect the gendarmerie 
posts, which are here quite close to one another. 
That they can protect the road is obvious; but 
what a few armed foot-soldiers can do to subdue 
large bands of mounted robbers, I cannot see. 



422 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

I have been told that last week the gendarmes 
surrounded the famous chief who has caused so 
much trouble, and might have captured him, had 
they not been too busy looting. They are also 
said to be such liars and cowards that, unless they 
produce the bodies (which as yet they have not 
done), their officers cannot believe them when 
they report nocturnal attacks repulsed with 
several men killed, but carried off by the remain- 
ing brigands. 

We are now nearing the valley-end, where there 
is an unusually large fort. The stench of carrion 
grows stronger every minute, until, on reaching 
the fort, the cause becomes evident: the skinned 
carcasses of two camels are lying, bloody and 
rotten, not two hundred yards from the gate; yet 
the gendarmes have made no attempt to remove 
them. The walls in this case do show recent 
traces of bullets. On a hill-crest dominating the 
valley, a little flag attracts attention to a sentinel's 
tent. Here we bid good-bye to the courteous 
and very interesting Swedish officer, who must 
sometimes wonder what he and his comrades can 
accomplish in this impossible country, where they 
are shot down, while their work disappears like 
sand-castles before waves. 

After leaving the plains of Kazarun by a lateral 
valley, the road soon enters the Tang-i-Turkan 
— an extremely narrow gorge winding between 
high walls of blackened rock, to which patches of 
reddish earth adhere, offering root-hold to many 




Women Travelling in Kajawas 




Our Caravan and Escort Passing a Gendarmerie Post near Kazarun 
Travel in this district is still dangerous and a sentinel is on watch at every post of 

gendarmes 







.•?f^.' •*,/>\ -//\; 







The Kutal-i-Mihr 
The zig-zag line in the centre is the path down the pre- 
cipitous cliff. Thus the situation makes it impossible to 
take a photograph of any of the Kutals which shall give 
an idea of their peculiarities 




A Woman Churning on the Road to Kahna Takhti 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 423 

shrubs. In some places the distance from side 
to side is so small, it would almost be possible to 
touch both of them with outstretched arms. The 
heat in this defile is unpleasant. The track 
ascends steadily, twisting in and out among boul- 
ders and crevices, which render the animals' pro- 
gress very difficult. Then, after sinking again, 
the gorge widens as we emerge on a plain, with 
Kamarij nestling under the hills on the further 
side. This valley is fertile but smaller than that 
of Kazarun, and entirely girdled by blackish 
purple mountains, spotted with brown or rose- 
grey earth. 

When we reach the village, the lodgings are as 
usual filthy and in ruin. My room is on a court 
filled with noisy men, women, and babies, not to 
mention my omnipresent enemies — the cats. 
Thanks to the servants and provisions which 
Mrs. B. sent with us from Shiraz, we have many 
comforts; but eating is difficult when, from the 
table, there is a clear view of a horse's bloated 
carcass, with a lean white dog tearing flesh from 
its bleeding ribs; and the room is alive with flies 
that have just been walking over filth and carrion. 
The privations of rough camping would be lux- 
urious, compared with the horrors of this semi- 
civilised country, where one lodges in squalor 
among dung and putrefaction 

Night and feeble moonlight. In one comer 
of the courtyard a woman is cooking something in 
a pot, stirring it with one hand, and with the other 



424 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

holding a burning brand to give her light. A man 
squats before a large coffer, while a woman emerges 
from a dark room, carrying a lighted candle in 
either hand — her arms held out from her sides 
with the pose of a tragic actress. On a low plat- 
form, in the opposite corner near a fire of small 
branches, a child lies on a rug beside its mother, 
wailing for the breast. The woman is seated on 
the ground, with a long veil hanging from her head, 
outlined against the flame, nursing her child like 
a madonna. Only a cricket is to be heard, and — 
from behind a partition — the breathing of cows 
and the munching of mules. Moon and firelight 
mingle in a curious glow, warm but pale. 



May 4*.^ 
At a quarter before three in the morning, the 
half-moon has set, and there is no sign of dawn. 
Across the unlighted sky a falling star has just 
shot through the constellations, leaving a golden 
trail. When the caravan is ready, there is just 
light enough to find our way dimly between the 
grain fields, as the darkness recedes and the stars 
go out. We wind around, then up the hills which 
enclose the valley, finding ourselves at the 
entrance to the Kutal-i-Kamarij before the sun has 
risen, but just when full day has come. 

This is reputed the most difficult kutcil in all 
Persia, and has long excited my curiosity. At 
first the track descends a narrow defile, where a 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 425 

few oleander bushes with pink blossoms, which 
grow beside a clear rivulet, are the only living 
things in sight; everything else is bare and dry 
like ancient bones. The mules pick their way 
with difficulty through the crevices between 
boulders. There are some sharp descents in the 
path, but no signs of the precipices and other 
perils of which I read. Just as this thought begins 
to perplex, the gorge suddenly widens, revealing 
the real kutal. At this point the two sides of the 
valley spread apart, while what has heretofore 
been the bed of the stream stops short at the edge 
of a slanting cliff, down which the water is preci- 
pitated, among green stains and small shrubs, to 
another valley over twelve hundred feet below. 
A more startling view I have never seen. 

Down the almost vertical face of the mountain, 
a narrow path descending in short loops, has been 
worn and built. At times it twists down the side 
of the cliff, at others passes out onto buttress-like 
projections, where it resembles the rude termina- 
tion of a spiral staircase. Standing a few feet 
to one side of the trail, I find myself on the edge 
of the chasm, looking straight down incalculable 
heights to the foaming river in the valley far 
below. Opposite, but very close, towers a bare 
pointed peak, grey-blue and — like all the colours 
in sight — metallic as though produced by the 
action of acid. Centuries of water rushing down 
its flanks, have hollowed out a series of curved 
channels separated by long ribs, in whose sharp 



426 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

edges the different layers are clearly visible. These 
ribs sweep from the pointed summit down to the 
base like vast sinews, spreading out as they de- 
scend. They seem immutably to support the 
mountain, conveying a sense of organic force only 
perceptible in nature's grandest work. The nobil- 
ity of these sweeping lines a master's drawing 
might faintly convey, but words cannot even sug- 
gest it. Their effect (one never found in human 
work) deserves the term sublime, since with 
beauty it mingles strangeness and awe. The 
valley which lies so far below, between this mount- 
ain and the cliff on whose side I am standing, is 
no more than a hemicycle in the side of a wider 
one, bounded by a low range, slate-coloured and 
sharply inclined coastward. Beyond it rises a 
tawny ridge, over which the fiat top of a distant 
mountain just shows in deep misty blue. The 
light is already clear, but the colours cold and 
dead, since the sun-rays have not yet plunged 
across the peaks into the shaded valley above 
which we seem suspended. Of vegetation there 
are but few signs ; of life and sound — none. Noth- 
ing to be seen but the majestic forms wrought by 
cosmic evolution. Standing on this cliff edge, 
looking out over space toward lifeless summ.its in 
the chill light of early dawn, — awe steals over me 
as though I had slipped unawares into the pre- 
cincts of some supersensual fane. ..... 

The mules have started down, and as we follow 
on foot (riding is too dangerous) I can see them 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 427 

wind down after our soldiers, who are leading 
their horses. At times the path worn through 
the rocks, is so narrow two animals could not 
possibly pass. As we clamber down — jumping 
from stone to stone — it turns gradually, entering 
the main valley. Over the nearer chains we catch 
glimpses of higher summits, far distant and rosy 
with the sun-rays they have been the first to 
catch. Suddenly a ragged Kashghar (a nomad 
tribe), who has overtaken us and passed ahead, 
begins to gesticulate violently and utter piercing 
screams in which one word frequently recurs. 
Our dapper captain rushes up to him, then shouts 
down to his men — almost out of sight among the 
rocks below. He tells us that the man is making 
an outcry because one of our escort has stolen a 
cone of sugar from him. In a few moments a 
soldier climbs up to return his comrade's booty, but 
the incident is not ended. When we reach the 
bottom of our cliff -cut stairway, without accident 
or loss of luggage over precipices, the soldiers 
are waiting beside their horses in a narrow gully, 
through which there is just room to pass beside 
the stream. The culprit having already been laid 
on a rock, the officer and one of his men proceed 
to thrash him with riding whips. They lay on 
the blows with all their might, while the man 
screams and wriggles; as he has all his clothes, 
including a thick overcoat, he cannot really feel 
much pain. A few months ago, I should have 
thought it impossible to see a man flogged with- 



428 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

out attempting to stop it. To-day I feel no sym- 
pathy, only approval of his punishment and regret 
that it should be so light. These wretched soldiers 
do not steal from the rich — driven perhaps by 
necessity — so much as from starving peasants, 
from whom they take by force whatever they 
chance to wish. Being impervious to reproofs or 
example, only pain can deter them. 

After this little incident, we continue down, the 
now slightty descending valley. Behind us, the 
slaty-blue chains of rock have closed in, hiding 
the gorge we left so far above us, hiding even that 
wonderful ribbed mountain. They are still in 
shade,' but — to the left — sun lies on the second 
rosy yellow ranges, slowly moving down their 
flanks, driving shadows before it. We are again 
changing direction, moving down a wider gorge 
intersected by thin walls of rock, through which 
the stream has cut openings just wide enough to 
let us pass. The inevitable body of a poor don- 
key lies half in the water, as we enter one of these 
cliffs. For some minutes the sound of rushing 
water has steadily grown louder; of a sudden we 
come out on the high bank of a wide but shallow 
stream, dashing over hidden rocks in little waves 
that fill the air with their babble. The river 
sweeps away in a wide semicircle, which we follow 
among boulders high up on a hillside overhanging 
the water. In a cove where the hills recede, a 
small village and a gendarmerie post lie in the 
morning sun, misty with smoke. In front of a 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 429 

wattled shed close to the road, a woman is making 
butter in a curiously primitive churn. From a 
horizontal stick, supported at either end by crossed 
poles, a skin sewed into a rude sack is hung. This 
is filled with milk, and swings backwards and 
forwards, until butter forms. A similar device 
was probably employed in Achaemenian times, 
surviving to this day but little changed. 

We soon leave the river by an incline to the 
left, from whose summit another plain is visible, 
spreading across to another kutdl. It is dotted 
with green squares — groves of date palms cluster- 
ing round a few clay houses. We are now near 
the bottom of Persia's world-wall, where fertile 
valleys lie like terraces between parallel lines of 
mountains, sloping south-eastward as far as India. 
It seems afternoon, but is only a half after eight 
o'clock when we reach the telegraph rest-house 
at Konar Takhtl, where we are to wait until mid- 
day before starting for Dalaki. The weather is 
surprisingly cool for the place and time of year, 
and the telegraph-compound a pleasant spot, its 
few acacias musical with twittering birds. It 
would be altogether comfortable were it not for 
innumerable flies, always loathsome, but in a land 
of disease and carrion doubl}^ so. 

At half past one we start again; fortunately a 
strong breeze pleasantly tempers the heat. Our 
way leads across the narrow valley toward the hills. 
On either side of us are fields of ripe grain, where 
large insects — not locusts — can be seen clinging 



430 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

to the golden stalks as they sway back and forth. 
Straw-coloured grasshoppers, as big as humming 
birds, jump across the road or whizz through the 
air. Before long we mount a little crest, and then 
descend to a gravelly valley. I shall never grow 
used to the surprises these kutals reserve for 
travellers. There is nothing about this path in 
any way different from a thousand other hillsides; 
I am thinking what tremendous imagination (to 
put it politely) Loti and other travellers must 
have used in their description of the ascent, when 
the valley plays the old trick of stopping short 
at the brink of a precipice. Passing round a heap 
of boulders, I discover a vast ravine, lying hun- 
dreds and hundreds of feet below at the base of a 
perpendicular wall of rock, on whose edge we are 
perched. This is the real Kutal-i-Malu — the 
Hare's or the Cursed Pass — to which the little 
valley we have just descended was merely an 
approach. 

Two parallel ranges of high mountains, entirely 
without vegetation, enclose the valley into which 
I am peering, their summits on a level with my 
feet. Egress from it appears barred by another 
line of mountains crossing its further end ; — peaked 
masses of olive-green, in places almost black, 
below which are foot-hills wrought and wrinkled 
in fantastic shapes, whose variety never ceases 
to interest. These views — standing on precipice 
edges — looking over wide spaces or down dizzy 
distances into wild ravines, exhilarate as nothing 




The Peaks above the Dalaki River near the Kutal-i-Mihr 




The DalakI River near the Kutal-i-Mihr 




A Sentinel on the Roof of a Gendarmerie Post Guarding a Bridge over the Dalaki River 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 431 

else can do We now start down the 

kutdl on foot, following the mules, who take each 
step very slowly after deliberately searching with 
one leg for foothold. The path twists back and 
forth to make descent possible, over painful stones 
between high piles of rock. Half-way down it is 
continued by a cork-screw stairway, built with 
parapets and paved with cobbles. These the 
chdrwdddrs evidently think too slippery for their 
animals, since they lead them over a steep path 
on the opposite side of the gully down which we 
are climbing. The bottom has now been reached; 
it has been a toilsome and certainly most precipi- 
tous descent, but has not seemed very remarkable. 
I am wondering why celebrated travellers have 
made such a pother about it, when I happen to 
stop and look back ; then I realise what an impres- 
sion this kutdl must make on persons moving 
up toward it. The valley appears without issue, 
absolutely sealed by a perpendicular wall of tawny 
rock tracing a jagged line across the bright blue 
sky. Just as Loti says, there seems to be no 
possible means of ascent; even when the track 
we have just descended is visible, it looks like no- 
thing more than a jagged line traced on a sheer 
mountain-side, up which no living thing could 
possib'y climb. Such a view might easily alarm, 
as well as astonish, ascending travellers. 

Advancing along a nearly level track, the mount- 
ains which seemed to bar our egress, prove to be 
on the opposite side of a much wider valley, situ- 



432 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

ated at right angles to the one we are now passing 
through. The road turns insensibly, leading out 
into the broader valley, which is cleft in the centre 
by a deep gorge with perpendicular walls. At 
the bottom, several hundred feet below the ledge 
where our path skirts the chasm verge, the Dalaki 
River rushes by, foaming like liquid aquamarine. 
Contrasting strongly with the deep velvet green 
of the mountains in shade across the valley, two 
eroded and very jagged peaks rise to the left in 
full sunlight, dominating the scene with their 
barren yellow pyramids of rock and earth, which 
in more ravaged portions are rose-coloured; for 
in Persia at certain hours every part of the land- 
scape seems tinged with pink. It is difficult to 
convey the curious impression produced on look- 
ing, first down the chasm to the swirling stream, 
then up to the bright bare peaks, which, in sun so 
far above, loom in the sky. 

From this point the path twists along, now 
nearer, now further from the edge of the ravine, 
descending all the while, until, on reaching the 
river level, it passes along a very narrow ledge 
between the hills and the stream. As the water 
is in these parts impregnated with sulphur, I had 
supposed the river to be the cause of an evil stench 
growing steadily stronger; but the far decayed 
body of another donkey soon proves to be its 
origin. A fine bridge — probably built under 
Shah 'Abbas, since everything solid seems to 
date from his reign — spans the river, its approach 



SHIrAZ to BUSHIR 433 

guarded by partly ruined fortifications. On top 
of the tower an armed gendarme is as usual posted 
beside the flag, watching the road. These for- 
tified posts, with their sentinel outlined against 
the sky, give the country a peculiar mediaeval air, 
reminding one how unsettled it really is. A short 
way beyond the bridge, a clear brook descends 
directly from hills without any signs of habita- 
tion; so its water seems safe to drink. It is the 
first draught of unboiled water I have had in 
four months, and tastes more delicious than any 
wine. A few moments later the road quits the 
river-bank, and to my great surprise enters a 
gorge, which the setting sun has left entirely in 
vshade. I had understood that there were no more 
passes, and expected to follow the stream out into 
coast-lands. We climb and climb, each rise 
showing our weary eyes a further ascent instead 
of the plain. Just when there seems to be no end 
to these barren rocks, we suddenly emerge from 
the ravine, with a boundless expanse of level green 
lying far below us, dotted with palms growing 
beside the river we left behind us in the valley. 
As we descend, the sun is just touching the horizon 
toward which the plain stretches like a solid sea 
of emerald. 

It is neither a beautiful nor a striking view, but 
few scenes have ever pleased me more, since it 
tells me that my very disappointing journey 
through Persia is nearly ended, and escape across 
the not far distant gulf at last possible. Rounding 
28 



434 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a mountain spur, Dalaki comes into sight, nestling 
at the foot of the hills in a grove of spreading 
palm-trees. A horrid stench of sulphur grows 
stronger the nearer we approach. When we 
arrive, moonlight has all but vanquished the last 
rays of sun. The lodging-place is very bad indeed, 
with only one room at all possible. Giving orders 
that the luggage shall not be unloaded until my 
return, I start out to see if there is nothing to be 
had at the gendarmerie. I discover a decent 
room, but on going back to have my kit brought 
over, find that the chdrwdddrs have dropped every- 
thing in the middle of a court filled with manure. 
Unless I wish to wait an hour, while it is being 
reloaded, there is nothing to do but take posses- 
sion of a small cavern opening on a little terrace 
two feet above the unspeakable courtyard. 
Thrashing the muleteers is only an act of justice, 
but does not help matters. The air is stifling 
and filled with mosquitoes ; the stench of sulphur 
enough to asphyxiate. Seated on the end of a 
valise, sweltering on the moon-lit terrace, as I 
watch Said struggle with the luggage pitched in 
hopeless confusion in the midst of dirt and dung; 
I try to take a swallow of what ought to be wine 
and water, and get a nauseating mouthful of warm 
cooking grease from a bottle the cook has had 
the impudence to place in my own saddle-bag. 
Only a sense of humour stands between me and 
desperation. How m^^ travelling companion, 
Mrs. D., can stand the hardships and annoy- 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 435 

ances of such a journey with equanimity, I can 
admire but hardly understand. Personally, it 
seems to me as though the few hours separating 
me from the boat to India were more than I could 
bear. 



May 5*.^ 
Even with wide-open doors, my room was suf- 
focating last night, and mosquitoes devoured 
what parts fleas had spared the night before. A 
strange noise on the floor aroused me; investiga- 
tion by candle-light discovered on the ceiling, 
near the head of my bed, a swallow's nest from 
which droppings fell regularly. After three or 
four hours of harassed sleep, I rose at half-past 
two, but it was past four o'clock when we got 
under way. Now as we crawl along the road to 
Borasjan, the overpowering stench of sulphur 
nauseates me. From time to time, we are forced 
to ford pools of oily black water streaked with 
green. As the sun rises, the heat becomes unpleas- 
ant. The road goes up and down ugly undula- 
tions in an interminable plain of bare yellowish 
grey earth. How hateful and wearisome it is! 
This wretched country shows itself in its most 
unlovely aspect these last days. Minutes drag 
along like hours; heat and weariness are really 
distressing. At last Borasjan comes into sight 
among its date-palms. We are to rest here and 
then push forward to Bushir by night, avoiding 



436 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

the heat. The kindly English telegraph-operator 
has prepared an excellent luncheon, and does 
everything to make us comfortable. What 
would become of travellers without these British 
Samaritans? 

It is past eight o'clock and very bright — al- 
though the moon is only half grown — when we 
leave for Shif , where we are to take a boat across 
the bay to Bushir. We have decided to let our 
soldiers from Shiraz go directly to Bushir, as 
accompanying us to Shif would mean many extra 
miles for their weary horses ; and are now escorted 
by five gendarmes whose faces I cannot clearly 
distinguish in this vague light. It is warm, but 
not unpleasantly so, and the moon-flood is mellow 
across the plain. As we ride out of the village, 
the air resounds with a confused noise like human 
voices accompanied by rude cymbals. It comes 
from the walled palm gardens which line the road ; 
so I suppose it to be discordant music at some 
moonlight festival. It appears that, in every 
garden, donkeys are drawing the water to fill 
the irrigating channels and moisten the sun- 
parched earth; the noise we hear is the unimagin- 
able creaking and squeaking of the apparatus 
which pulls the buckets up the deep wells. It 
would be difficult to find anything stranger than 
these harshly festive sounds reaching our ears 
from every direction, as we ride between the clay 
walls in the brilliance of the moon. 

When the village has been left behind, I can 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 437 

just perceive an earthy plain stretching vaguely 
away without bounds — at rare intervals dotted 
with mud villages and a few date-palms. In 
this dim light where only form and no colour can 
be distinguished, these trees really do look like 
immense feather-dusters. I feel as though we 
must be riding through one of those extraordinary 
countries where objects of utility acquire life; 
lands like the one which in Davy and the Goblin 
so charmed my childhood, as to seem to this day 
a part of my own experience. If I am perhaps 
suffering from hallucinations to-night, it is not 
surprising. Even by charitable moonlight, I 
can make out the utter monotony of the feature- 
less level — either mud or baked clay according 
to season — which inimitably surrounds us. The 
sight of it irritates, even more than it wearies, 
the nerves; to add to my misery, drowsiness has 
begun to seize me. At Borasjan thousands of 
flies prevented me from so much as closing my 
eyes, and last night fleas, mosquitoes, heat, and 
swallows, accorded me only a few hours' doze. 
Now an irresistible sleepiness overpowers me like 
pain. Do what I will, my head drops and — for a 
few moments — I move along swaying from side 
to side, until a sudden lurch rouses me just in time 
to seize the pommel and keep from falling. In 
the hope of really waking myself, I get off and 
walk; even this is useless, since I tramp along in 
a kind of trance, stumbling over the ruts formed 
by dried mule-prints. The only thing which for 



438 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a few seconds shakes off this painful torpor, is my 
mule's behaviour. She must be possessed by 
forty devils to-night; refusing to be led, she drags 
behind me at the bridle-end, then shies outrageously 
whenever I try to mount. Whether swaying in the 
saddle, or marching on bruised and weary feet, 
time crawls with a slowness that seems an added 
torment. After what appears to be an endless 
space of time, I take out my watch only to find 
that just ten minutes have elapsed since I last 
looked; there are hours, and still more hours of 
travel ahead of us. The Great Bear descends 
the sky, turning over as it circles round the polar 
star; its progress, only perceptible in relation to 
fixed stars, gives an irritating measure of how time 
seems forever halted. 

At midnight we stop to rest and eat. Lying 
on the baked earth in the ghostly light, with noth- 
ing visible but the dark silhouette of our animals 
in a void expanse ; I feel outside the world in some 
dim gehenna. After a few agonised moments, 
spent on my back trying to keep my eyes from 
closing, we move on. The yabii's great bell 
booms and jangles about the tinkling mule-bells. 
Boom, crash! Boom, crash! it beats in on my 
brain. There is no longer any hope of ending this 
horrible journey; time must have ceased. Fatigue 
and perhaps a touch of fever have really bred 
hallucinations, for nightmares dance before me 
even with open eyes. The moon descends the 
sky among nacrous veils swaying strangely; or 



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SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 439 

when my eyelids suddenly unclose, I see fading 
outlines of mountain peaks traced in crimson on 
the grey void before me. Our own animals and 
men move before, behind, or beside me, like visions 
in the dim circles of Dante's Hell. Every nerve 
and muscle aches, and I am almost nauseated 
by the uncontrollable rocking of my drowsy head. 
I am actually living one of those tortured dreams 
which sometimes makes sleep horrible. 

The Great Bear now lies directly under the 
North Star, and the moon has almost sunk to the 
vague dimness marking the horizon. Every 
minute its light lessens, growing greyer and more 
ghastly; finally its wan fragment disappears in 
the formless dark. For a little we move along in 
a mere ghost of light, just able to see one another 
and the track before us. The gendarmes pass 
back and forth beside us like phantoms, as the 
light becomes fainter and still more faint. Then 
darkness closes around us — almost a relief. Soon 
I begin to look eastward eagerly, hoping to discern 
the pallor of "false dawn"; but the dim starry 
sky obstinately remains without change. This 
slow march through immeasurable night, seems 
an eternal torment. When all hope has long been 
dead, a greyness begins to creep along the eastern 
horizon, and slowly mounts the sky. Then a 
white luminosity fills all the heavens eastward, 
giving just enough light to see where we are: a 
level rutty plain of dried mud, bounded by a low 
chain of dirty brown hills, under a sky absolutely 



440 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

lifeless except for a misty glow in the east. A more 
unlovely scene never met the strained gaze of 
aching travellers. 

Still no sign of Shif as the light increases, al- 
ways without life or colour — a mere ghost of 
daybreak. At last, over a slight eminence I can 
descry a towered caravanserai on the sand beside 
a grey sea. I dare not believe it to be our destina- 
tion, but before long we ride up and dismount 
among bales of merchandise piled outside the 
walls. A sail-boat is waiting at anchor to carry 
us to Bushir. After the mules have been un- 
loaded, and the luggage carried to the boat on 
men's backs, we ride out through the water and 
climb aboard. At first a feeble wind just fills 
the slanted sail ; but before long the men are obliged 
to row with long oars of primitive shape. As the 
sun is now up and beginning to burn, a small sail 
is rigged across the stern to screen us. Lying 
here, I do not care what may happen, now that 
I have reached the sea and can escape from the 
country which for so many years I dreamed of 
visiting 

Bushir is in sight — a low line of not untidy 
houses on a rounded headland. Clambering 
onto the dock, amid a crowd of onlookers, I 
regretfully bid farewell to my courageous fel- 
low-traveller who is to visit friends. Then, after 
seeing my kit loaded on a string of tiny donkeys, 
I get into a real carriage, and drive seven 
miles through sandy country, in sight of the 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 441 

vividly blue-green sea, to the British Residency 
at Sabzabad. 



May 7*?» 
The Residency is a huge building with large 
high-ceilinged rooms behind a very deep veranda, 
which always keeps them in shade. It is filled 
with well-trained Indian servants, whose quiet 
ways and spotless white clothes seem miraculous 
after inefficient Persians in frock-coats. It is 
situated in a sandy plain (now brown, but earlier 
in the year green with crops) dotted with palms 
and a feathery green tree — close to the deep 
turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf. After my 
long and distasteful journey, it is a haven of 
refuge, which pleasant company, interesting con- 
versation, and unlimited hospitality, enhance. 
The Resident's wife is a splendid example of the 
energy and unconscious courage which make 
Englishwomen in far parts one of the finest types 
of womanhood to be met with anywhere. Gently 
born and often none too robust, without the 
stimulus of official work, separated from their 
children, in the midst of impossible climates and 
conditions those at home cannot even conceive; 
they maintain an unflinching courage and inter- 
est in life, quite beyond praise. Men and women 
alike, these British exiles, their activities often 
neglected or misjudged by Government, are the 
flower of their race, with a devotion to duty and 



442 MOSCOW TO THE PERSIAN GULF 

a high standard of living that inspire all who come 
in contact with them. 



^~. May io*> 

The mail-steamer for Karachi has arrived, and 
I am to board her this evening to avoid a midnight 
departure. Leaving my best wishes with those 
w^ho have made my last days in Persia memorable, 
I start for Bushir at sundown. A scarlet globe, 
much flattened, is just dipping in the sea; the 
sky is aflame with gold and bronze that seem to 
suffuse the air, making me feel as though moving 
through a haze of gold. When the carriage 
reaches the wharf, my seven donkeys — all white 
except one — ^have trotted up to the sail-boat 
and dropped their burdens. The boatmen push 
off, poling through shallow water for a long dis- 
tance. At last I am leaving Persia! The sun 
has set; near the horizon the sky is grey-green, 
but — after passing behind bright clouds — melts 
into pale lilac where one star hangs; then, above 
darker smoke-coloured clouds, deepens to vivid 
blue. The men have hoisted a sail that no wind 
fills, and are rowing with long oars strangely 
shaped. Night is gathering as we glide over the 
now breathless sea, across which the distant lights 
of the steamer have just begun to shine. Then 
the moon rises — a dull orange disk, trying to 
break through black clouds, and as yet casting 
no light on the dark oily water. It would be 



SHIRAZ TO BUSHIR 443 

pleasant to feel romatic — like Loti — on leaving 
Persia, and write rosy dithyrambs about cities 
of "light and death" bathed in the diaphanous 
atmosphere of the distant uplands; but candour 
forces me to admit that my sensations are most 
unromantic. The foreground of my consciousness 
is filled by the slowness of our progress through 
hot and stupefying vapour, the rest by a vivid 
remembrance of discomfort and — what is worse — 
disappointment. So I take my last view of one 
more illusion, Persia — a country that has in many 
ways been worth the visit, but one that I hope 
heartily never to see again. Whenever in the 
future I think of it, among the memories of my 
three months' journey, the chief place will always 
be occupied by the unfailing kindness and hospi- 
tality of English men and women, whom I had 
never seen before, but now feel honoured to call 
friends. 



INDEX 



Abada, village, 310, 330 

'Abbas Abad, town, 171 ; Chris- 
tian colony of, transported 
from Georgia by Shah 
'Abbas, 172 

AchEemenian kings, 349 

Afghan fort, 285 

Afghanistan, 165 

Afrasiab, heights, 39 

Agha Muhammad Khan, the 
founder of Qajar dynasty, 

197, 395 

Aghajan, the author's guide, 
64 

Ahuramazda (Ormazd), 361, 
370, 372 

Ahuwan, the pass of, 203, 205 

Aiwan-i-Kayf, village, 220, 221 

Alexander, at Oxus, 60; march 
of, 192, 196; in pursuit of 
Darius, 218-220; likened to 
Hermes carved by Praxi- 
teles, 218 

Alghazali, theologian, 114 

Alhaqq, village, 177 

'Aliabad, village, 212 

Aliaga, All Agha, 340 

'All Baba jars, 92 

'All Qapu, Sublime Porte, 275- 
277 

Allverdi Khan, bridge of, 268 

AUaha Akbar, God is Great, 
378 

Alph, sacred river, 37 

Aminabad, 314-315 

Amir, 199, 201-202; Governor 
of Samnan, 198, 205, 207- 
210 



'Amu Darya (Oxus), 59 
Andarun, women's apartments, 

385 
Anan, ruined city, 63 
Antiochus the Great, 196 
Anushirwan, Khusraw (Chos- 
roes I.), 203-204; forced 
the Roman Empire to pay 
tribute, 203; expelled the 
Abyssinians from Arabia, 
203 
Armenians, employed by Brit- 
ish Government, 261 
Askabad, description of, 64 
Assyrian silhouette, the ap- 
pearance of Southern Per- 
sians likened to, 317 
Astarabad, 199 
Astyages, King of Media, 350 

Bagh-i-Iram (terrestrial para- 
dise), garden, 396, 399 

Bagh-i-Naw, 396 

Bagh-i-Takht, royal garden at 
Shiraz, 394-395 

Bahram (Bahram Governor), 
Sasanian King, 368 

Bajgiran, village, 80, 83 

Balalaikas, musical instru- 
ments, 13 

Bandamir, Bendameer, stream, 

375 
Bast, sanctuary, 106 
Bayazld, Sufi mystic, 185-186; 

citations from, 187; shrine 

of, 189 
Bibi Khanum, mosque of, 36, 

37, 39, 40 



445 . 



446 



INDEX 



Borasjan, village, 435, 437 
Bukhara, description of, 45- 

47 ; streets of, 47-48 ; bazars 

of, 51; costumes of, 53; 

Registan or market-place 

at, 48-49 
Bushir, 436, 440, 442 
Bustam, description of, 187; 

shrine of Bayazid, 189 

Caspias Portae, Caspian gates 
through which Darius fied 
before Alexander, 218 

Caspian Sea, 23, 69 

Chahar Bagh, avenue at Is- 
fahan, 266-267 

Chai, tea, 174 

Chai khana, tea-house, 85 

Charwadar, muleteer, 288 

Chihil Sutan, throne room, 

273-275 
Chinar, plane tree, 116 
Chinar-i-Rahdar, village, 406 
Chingiz Khan, 20, 196; at 

Merv, 61 
Cyrus the Great, the image of, 

351; tomb of, 350-351 

Dalaki River, 432 
Dalaki, village, 429, 434 
Damawand, mount, 222 
Damghan, birthplace of Path 
'Ali Shah, 96; citadel at, 194; 
tomb of an Imam Zada at, 
195; scene of the cruelties of 
Antiochus, Chingiz Khan, 
Timar Lang, and Zaki Khan, 
196 
Darius Codomannus, 171 
Darius Hystaspes, tomb of, 362 
Dasht-i-Arzhan, village, 410- 

412 
Dihabad, village, 260 
Dihbid, village, 342, 345-347 
Dih-i-Nuh, village, 349 
Dilgusha Bagh, garden, 394, 

404 
Dyer's gate, of NishapQr, 132 

Ecbatana, Hamadan, 196 



Faridu'd Din 'Attar, Shiykh 

'Attar, verses from, 137; 

tomb of, 138 
Farrash, officer, 104 
Fars, modern name of the 

province of Persis, 383 
Farsakh, a distance of four 

miles, 95, 99, 154 
Fath 'All Shah, 108, 134, 197; 

mosque of, 208, 209 
Fatima, shrine of, built by 

Shah Abbas, 129 
Firangi, European, 96 
Firdawsi, 112; tomb of, 113; 

city of, 1 14 
Fourgon, rude Vv^aggon, 170 

Cached, incased in plaster, 252 
Garden of the Forty Dervishes, 

392 

Garden of the Seven Dervishes, 

401, 402 
Gazelles, summit of a defile, 

203 
Ghazni, city of Mahmud, 112 
Ghulam, servant, 311 
Great Moghal, 95 
Gulshan, flower garden, 398- 

399 

Hafiz of Shiraz, 378; tomb of, 

389-391 
Haji 'Abbas, the authors 

muleteer, 301 
Haji Baba (Morier; see the 

following), 165 
Haji Baba of Ispahan, novel, 

125 

Hawz, tank, 50 
Hecatompylos, 195 
Husayn, the author's guide 
and interpreter, 236 

Imam Qull, post-station, 86 

Imam Rida, shrine, 103, 106, 
129, 203 

Imam Zada, tomb of, at Dam- 
ghan, 195 

Imam Zada-i-MahrQq, Mosque 
of, 138 



INDEX 



447 



Iraq, 171 " 
Iran, Persia, 8 1 
Isfahan, capital of Safavid 
dynasty, 265 

1. Chahar Bagh, avenue 
at, 266, 267 

2. Aladrasa (university) 
of Shah Husayn at, 267 

3. Bridge of 'Aliverdi 
Khan at, 268 

4. Bazars of, 269 

5. Maidan-i-Shah, square 
at, 269 

6. Alasjid-i-Shah, mosque 
at, 269, 270 

7. Lutf Allah, mosque at, 
270 

8. Chihil Sutun, forty 
pillars, throne room 
built by Shah Abbas at, 

273-275 

9. 'All Qapu, Sublime 
Porte at, 275-277 

10. Nawruz festival at, 
280-284 
Isfahan!, people of Isfahan, 287 
Iskandar, Alexander, 128 
Ispahan, see Isfahan, 125 
Ivan Grosny the Terrible, 5; 
church of, 5 

Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, 138 
Jami, verse from, 250 
Julfa, Armenian quarters, at 
Isfahan, 281 

Kabjan Mosque, in Bukhara, 

55. 59 
Kabul, 165 

Kabyles, Berbers of Algeria, 93 
Kagan, city, 44, 59 
Kajawa, a litter borne by 

beasts of burden, 238 
Kam.arij, village, 423 
Karachi, author taking steamer 

for, 442 
Karbala, burial place of 'All's 

son, Husayn, in Iraq, 238 
Karim Khan, Governor of 

Fars, 383; palace of, 383- 



385; AndarQn, women's 

apartments of, 385 
Kasan, station, 4 
Kashaf Rud, Tortoise Stream, 

112 
Kashan, city, 255 
Kashghar, a tribe, called after 

the city of that name, 427 
Kay Khusraw (identified with 

Cyrus), 354 
Kazarun, town, 417, 419, 420; 

bas-reliefs of Shapur at, 

420-421 
Khabardar, look out!, 278 
Khafr, village, 262 
Khan, great chief, 234 
Khan-i-Khora, 339, 342 
Khan-i-Zinian, village, 408- 

410 
Khanum, lady, 399 
Khokand, 44, 49 
Khurasan, 95, iii, 123, 171 
Khusrawgird, village, minar 

of, 153 
Khusraw, Anushirwan, 203 
Kinara, village, 358, 374 
Kirghiz Cossacks, 15; flocks 

of, 19; complexion of the 

people of, 20; dwellings of, 

22, 23 
Konar Takhtl, village, 429 
Krasnaya Square, 4 
Krasnovodsk, city, 64, 69 
Kremlin, city, 4, 5 
Kubla Khan, Mongol ruler, 37 
Kuchan, town, 90, 95 ; shops of, 

97 

Kufic, ancient Arabic charac- 
ters, 28, 37 
Kutal, mountain pass, 414 
Kutal-i-Dukhtar, a pass, 417 
Kutal-i-Kamarij, a pass, 424 
Kutal-i-Malu, a pass, 430 

Laila, Majnun's beloved, 137 

Lasgird, town, 211 

Loti, not allowed inside Is- 
fahan, 281; enjoyed his first 
view of Isfahan, 295; rode 
to see the roses of Isfahan, 



448 



INDEX 



Loti — Continued 

296; refers to Yazdikhast, 
323; mentions the walls of 
Shulgistan, 327; his Ver 
Isfahan, 328; refers to travel 
in Persia, 329 

Lutf Allah Mosque, at Isfahan, 
270 

Madrasa, university, 249 

Mahmud, King, 112 

Mahyar, village, 302, 303 

Maidan, square, 96 

Maidan-i-Shah, a square at 
Isfahan, 269 

Maidan-i-Tup, artillery- 

ground, 223 

Majnun, the lover of Laila, 137 

Manzariyyah, town, 243 

Maracanda, town, 39 

Marlowe's Vision of Tambur- 
lane, 31 

Mashhad, description of, 103; 
bazars of, 105; shrine of 
Imam Rida at, 106, 107; 
Governor of, and his audi- 
ence to the author, 109, no 

Masjid-i-Shah, a mosque at 
Isfahan, 269, 270 

Matuschka or Little Mother 
Volga, 13 

Mazlnan, town, 168 

Merv, city, 21, 61 

Mervdasht, plain of, 358, 359, 

365. 372 
Miamal, village, 175, 183 
Mian Kutal, a pass, 414-416 
Mihr, plain of, 164 
Mongolian, type of men, 12, 20 
Moscow, 69 
Moskva River, 5 
Most, curds or matzun, 134 
Muhammad 'All Shah, 207 
Mullas, Muhammedan priests, 

106 
Munshi, secretary, 288 
Murchikhurt, village, 263 
Murghab, plain of, 349, 351, 

, 354 

Muzaffaru'd-Din Shah, 249 



Nadir Quli Khan, Nadir Shah, 

95, 196 
Na'ib, lieutenant, 237 
Naqsh-i-Rajab, description of, 

365; Sasanian sculptures at, 

365 

Naqsh-i-Rustam, description 
of, 361 ; royal tombs at, 362; 
Sasanian bas-reliefs at, 362 

Narband, witch elm, 138 

Nawruz, New Year, 264; cele- 
bration of, at Isfahan, 280 

Nishapur, Governor's house 
at, 132, 133; Persian dinner 
by the Governor of , 134, 135; 
tomb of Sheikh 'Attar at, 
138; tomb of 'Umar Khay- 
yam near, 138-140 

Nusherwan, Anushirwan, Sas- 
anian King, 204; Sa'dl's 
praise of, 204 

Orenburg, city, 15 
Oxus, 60 

Panathenaic festival, 219 
Parsis, Zoroastrians, 222 
Parthenon, 219 
Pasargadce, location of, 349; 

first capital of Persia, 350; 

tomb of Cyrus at, 350; 

inscriptions of Cyrus at, 351 ; 

sculptures of Cyrus at, 351 
Peacock Throne, 234 
Perovsk, city, 20 
Persepolis, description of, 365- 

367, 374; immense platform 

of, 367; royal tombs at, 367, 

368; palaces of Darius and 

Xerxes at, 367, 368 
Persia, conveyances of, 73; 

post-horses of, 86; soldiers of, 

94 

Petersburg, 24 
Pilaw, a dish of rice, 135 
Pul-i-Abrasham, bridge, 171 
Pul-i-KhajQ, bridge, 283 
Pushtins, leather overcoats, 
87 



INDEX 



449 



Qadamgah, village, location of, 
129; Imam Rida's shrine at, 
129-130 
Qadirabad, village, 347 
Qal'a-i-Shur, village, 297 
Qalyun, water pipe, no 
Qiran, coin, about ten cents, 66 
Qishlaq, post-station, 215, 217 
Qum, city where the shrine of 
Fatima, sister of Imam 
Rida, is situated, 236 
Qumisha, town, description of, 

308, 309; graveyard of, 309 
Qur'an, 138 

Ray (Ragha), 222 

Registan, a market-place in 

Samarqand, 33, 40, 48; in 

Bukhara, 48, 49 
Ribat-i-Za'farani, the Saffron 

guard-house, 145 
Ribat of Anushirwan, 203 
Rimsky-Korsakov's legendary 

operas, 175 
Rishta, guinea-worm, 50 
Rivand, village, 158 
Royal Palace, description of, 

234 
Rudbar Gate, Indigo, 113 
Ruknabad, brook, 377, 378 
Russia, carriages of, 3; archi- 
tecture of, 7; crows of, 10; 
roubles of, 66; officialdom of, 
67, 69, 79; Cossacks of, 70, 
74, 78, 96, 98, 99, 105, 106; 
disturbances of, 82, 134; 
Consul of, 123, 124 
Rustam, represented as slay- 
ing the White Div, 208 
Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, 
embassador, 31 

Sabzabad, British residency 

at, 441 
Sabzawar, town, 76 ; bazar of, 

146; Governor of, 146-148, 

150, 151, 161 
Sa'di, tomb of, 394, 403 
Said, the author's Algerian 

valet, 4 



Samarqand, city, 3, 28, 36, 39, 
41 > 53. 56, 107; modern 
Samarqand, 24; monuments 
of, 25; two peculiarities of, 
32; mosques of, 35, 49; archi- 
tecture of, 50; carts of, 52 

Samnan, city, 205, 210; Amir 
of, 205-207; Mullas of, tol- 
erant, 209; Imam Zada's 
shrine at, 209 

Sardara Pass, identified with 
Caspiae Portae, 218 

Sarths, 22, 23, 63 ; at prayer, 36 

Sayyids, descendants of Mu- 
hammad, from his daughter 
Fatima, by 'All, 278 

Shah 'Abbas, 116, 128, 129, 
145, 172, 176, 203 

Shah 'Abdu'l 'Azim, shrine, 

237 
Shahrud, town, 183, 184, 205; 

Amir of, 185, 186, 190 
Shah's Salam, New Year's 

reception, 232, 233 
Shah Zinda Mosque, 37, 38 
Shaitan, the devil, 181 
Shapur, Sasanian King, 362; 

bas-reliefs of, 420, 421 
Sharifabad, village, 221 
Sheykh 'Attar, see Faridu'd- 

Din 'Attar, tomb of, 138 
Shi'a, traditional sect of Islam, 

93 

Shif, near Bushir, 436, 440 

Shi'ite, member of Shi'a sect, 
96, 129, 136, 202 

Shimran, loi, 124 

Shiraz, location of, 377; bazars 
of, 387; tomb of Hafiz at, 
389-391; gardens of, 392- 
398; tomb of Sa'dl at, 394, 
403; beauty of, 398, 402-404 

Shirazi, a person from Shiraz, 
404 

Shirin, consort of Khusraw 
Parwiz, 137 

Shulgistan, 324 

Sivand, village, 356, 374 

Sizran, city, 12 

Sohrab and Rustam, 59 



450 



INDEX 



Sudkhwar, city, i6i, 165 

Sufi, 137, 138 

Sultanabad, city, 243 

Sunnite, orthodox Muhamme- 
dan, 136-139 

Surmak, village, 332; de- 
scription of, 332-4 

Suwar, soldier, iii 

Tabriz, city, 106, 199 
Tabriz!, a person from Tabriz, 

389 , , 

Takht-i-Jamshid, name of the 
platform at Persepolis, 368 

Takht-i-Sulaiman, throne of 
Solomon, at Mashhad-i- 
Murghab, 349 

Talar, portico, 271, 285-287 

Tang-i-AUahu Akbar, name of 
a pass, 378 

Tang-i-Bulaghi, rock-hewn 
causeway, 354 

Tang-i-Turkan, a gorge, 422 

Tartar, women of, 20; general 
of, 40 

Tashkent, city, 21, 22, 60 

Tchernyayevo, 23 

Tihran, description of, 227; 
policy of England and 
Russia at, 227-228; Ameri- 
can Mission School at, 228- 
229; dignity of the British 
legation at, 229; undignified 
standard of the American 
legation at, 230-1 

Tillah Kari's Mosque, 40 

Timur (Timur Lang, Tamer- 
lane, Tamburlaine), Tartar 
ruler, 20, iii, 178; Samar- 
qand, his capital, 24, 25: 
Samarqand, his birthplace, 
31; the mosque he built for 
his wife at Samarqand, 36; 
Timur, name of Colonel B.'s 
orderly, 389 

Tomb of Cyrus, 348, 353; 
erroneously called the tomb 
of the Mother of Solomon, 
352; Aristobulus's account 
of it, 352 



Tomb of Darius Hystaspes, 
362-4 

Tortoise, Kashaf Rud, 112 

Troitsco-Sergiyevskaya Lavra 
Monastery, 6 

Tufangchi, road guard or rifle- 
man, 301 

Tuman, coin, about one dollar, 
288 

Tunis, bazars of, 46 

Turkestan, 20 

Turkish journalist, 164, 165 

Turkomen, costume of, 63, 64; 
raids of, 165 

Tus, ruins of, 112, 114; river 
of, 112; gate of, 113; tomb 
of Firdawsi at, 113; citadel 
of, 114, 115 

'Umar Khayyam, 104,111, 132; 

tomb of, 136, 138-140; verses 

of, 169 
'Umayyad Khalifs, cursed by 

Shi'ites, 250 

Vasily Blasjenny Church, 4 
Volga River, 13 

Xanadu, imaginary city of 

Kubla Khan, 37 
Xerxes, portico of, 367; palace 

of, 368 

Ya 'All, invocation of 'All for 

assistance, 202 
Yabu, pack-horse, 438 
Yazd, city, 393 
Yazdikhast, village, approach 

to, 318, 319; description of, 

322, 323 

Zaki Khan, 196 

Zarathustra, Zoroaster, 364; 

symbol of, 370, 372 
Zar'ghan, description of, 375, 

376 ^ . 

Zoroastrian literature referrmg 
to the plain of Mihr, 164 




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